Song of the Dead
by Ghost of Flatwoods
Summary: Wraith: The Oblivion story, featuring adventures of Sylvia Plath as a wraith in New York Necropolis. My literary interpretation of the late Sylvia Plath is entirely fictional romantisation. I do not own World of Darkness or Wraith the Oblivion. The story takes place in the alternate oWoD.
1. By our own hand

Song of the dead: Part one

* * *

By our own hand

 _My mind was floating high above my body, escaping me like unruly child running after the ball. Through the rapidly narrowing keyhole of my vision I managed to spy something white.A hand. Cracked, bitten fingernails, extending towards the soft fabric of a towel._

 _Remember Syv you have to remember…_

 _Remember what? For crying out loud, tell me what, I cannot grasp it now! My head hurts, my thoughts are fleeing and there is a steady rumble of car engine down on the street._

I woke from my slumber. The Katrina Trask Park was humming with the cacophony of noises. People were walking, chatting shouting jokes to each other. Hive of youth, coming here to enjoy peace and quiet of the art colony before filling it with voices. Before I shut out the distinct echoes of the Skinlands, I took a moment to relish in their joy. Group of young artists, two boys and two girls, were walking towards me along the gravel path, laughing and talking about the latest poem one of the girls had written. She recited it to them in a mockingly pompous tone. The poem was bad, but nevertheless, I drank the pride she felt those clumsy verses. It made me full. It made me happy. They walked right through me, unaware of my presence and went towards the campus building talking of this afternoon creative writing lecture they were planning to attend. Suppressing the stupid desire to follow them, I decided to get ready for work. Maybe some lost soul needed my guidance. I opened the small soulmetal chest, and shivered in anticipation of its scream. But whatever unfortunate soul was trapped in the hard shell of its warm, bronze sheen ( _Oh Syv, you romantic)_ it remained silent. I rummaged through knickknacks finding the soulmetal nametag. I snapped it on the lapel of my jacket. Under my name and title, four words adorned the metal.

 _By our own hand._

Point of pride, down here in the halls of the Silent legion. They like to think they knew something other Quick did not. Maybe it was the rotting fingerprint of death, slow decay that permeated every aspect of the Skinlands, mute memento to its mortality. Maybe it was the troubling notion that their unhappy life makes no sense in the end.

My office was in decayed five- story building in the abandoned downtown mall that had previously housed a motel, a brothel, and a shelter for town's winos. I walked towards it along the same gravel paths, stretching themselves between the rows of dead trees. For the Quick that walked under them or read, chatted & kissed beneath their shade they seemed alive and deep green with the lush freshness of May, but the never-shut eyes of the dead observed only skeletons of twisted branches, with rotting patches of yellow and black gangrenous leaves clinging to them. Late November never ends after you kick it.

Depressing? It depends. To the crowd of wrist- slitters, bridge- jumpers, bullet-eaters and pill-poppers (let's not forget the monoxide-chuggers, won't we, gal?) I hung out with it was the only way to see the world. For some of us, even when we were breathing. It might bum out some of the others who hoped for harp playing angels, reincarnation or eternal peace of mind but we were pessimists to begin with. By our own hand, oh maiden fair, won't you join the ranks of Despair? We cannot offer you dough; we cannot offer you fame, but _everything rots_ is the name of the game.

Leaving the Yaddo complex I traversed the dusty country road that connected it to the town. In Skinlands the Main street was filled with noisy traffic, but over here in Shadowlands, few grim legionnaires, walked between gray derelict buildings clutching their soulforged spears and maintaining the Charon's Law. I crossed the road and walked into the street that ended in the parking lot of the abandoned Spring Lady motel. The old burned out neon sign still spelled out the name and proudly displayed three stars. Hartford was working reception, a tall, youth in immaculate, if old- fashioned suit. Round spectacles were tittering on the narrow ledge of his nose, as he observed the entrance; long white fingers assembled the pyramid under his chin.

"Anyone dropped in while I was gone?", I asked while assessing the old hotel lobby through the Veil. Rusted shopping cart left in the corner. A couple of new graffiti scribbled on the moldy walls. If' someone is crashing in our offices we ought to scare them out. Subtly, off course. In line with the Law.

"Nope. Old Archie is doing the reaping today. He hadn't come back yet."

"Not many new recruits lately. Maybe we need a new Wall Street crash."

"Very funny", Hartfort, a '29-ner himself, shot back with a cynical smile.- I don't think new stock market crash would do anything to improve our ranks. Businessmen these days are far less desperate. People of letters on the other hand never stop despairing. Although, I don't think we need any more poets. Most of you were never taught how to hold a sword or a gun, and they tend to be really bad with numbers."

"Ever heard that pen is mightier than a sword?"

"True, if you are fighting evil literary critics. Does nothing for Spectres, though."

"You win. Gotta go now, See you."

"See you. Don't let Archie pester you too much. Tell him to stick it and send the obviously bummed out to the Dreyne for military training."

"I'll try. You know he hates to deal with the Lethe crazies."

"Everybody does."

Old motel-rooms, furnished with few soulforged desks and chairs were doubling as our offices. Apart for a few paper pushers and old McDouglas, late FBI spook turned intelligence clerk for the Silent legion after drinking himself to death, the place was largely empty. He greeted me with a welcoming smile.

"Looking stunning today Syv."

"Thank you Mac.,"I smiled back. There aren't many people in the Underworld that are as friendly as our little crowd., "Working on those Apocalypse crew contracts?"

"Uh-uh. Trying to make sense of his insane babble. Those heretic cults are getting crazier every day. But I'd rather have them under my control then feeding the Oblivion. It's not like Spectres need more apocalypse worshippers in their bunch."

Taking the desk by the window, and doing my best to ignore the gross heap of rubbish that was attracting vermin to the corner of the room I started my mental preparations for endless hours of boredom. My job in the Saratoga chapter of the Silent legion consisted of accommodating new recruits. After our reapers freed newly deceased from their cauls they would be dragged before me. Then I used castigation techniques Cletus thought me to check the power of their Shadow. If they were dangerous I reported that to Cletus – dealing with Oblivion-tainted was a huge security risk, especially with the new Manhattan Nihil spewing dark energy of the Void into this part of the Shadowlands. If they seemed acceptable I ran them throughout the whole concept of Hierarchy legions and asked them if they wanted to sign with us. Of course, engraving on my nametag that read: _Sylvia Plath_ , _clerk of_ _Silent Legion: NYN - By our own hands_ came as great PR for all those desparate, dead literature aficionados reapers would drag to my desk.

Silent Legion recruits victims of despair. That means we managed to lay our paws on most suicide victims (at least those of them that aren't grabbed from under us by Spectres in Training), most drug and alcohol related deaths and people who simply give up on living. Most of our recruits, after initial shock, realize one suicide is enough and decide to get a job inside one of multiple Legions civil branches; for others there is a position within Warriors of Lethe, glorious kamikaze of the Hierarchy.

To kill the long waiting hours I decided to use Lifeweb and check up on my Fetters, anchors connecting me to the world of the Quick. If they are gone, Shadowlands are pretty much lost to you- only thing that remains are the secure islands inside the Tempest. I hadn't sensed anything funny happening but I also hadn't sensed nothing when Ted did his latest idiot's move and destroyed my diaries until the Oblivion pulled me down. Next two weeks were a nightmare to me.

I concentrated on the spiritual image of the location. The old archive roomed slowly and blurrily came into my vision. There were cardboard boxes full of documents, rectangular shapes floating into my mind, like an image of a dream. Rows of them filled the small basement room, lit only by the winking gaze of the phosphorescent light-bulb. Archive clerks moved amongst them, carrying different carefully marked boxes or leather bound binders full of files. Ten long boxes marked with my name and signature code collected dust. Clerks, mostly students slaving there to earn their scholarships, paid them no mind.

 _Tell you what Syv: what if one of them decides to smoke, regulations be damned and has an accident. Whoom! Everything goes to cinders while you are stuck there smiling for the bunch of screw-ups._

Throwing this unpleasant notion away, like somebody might toss a boring book across the living room, I decided to check on Katrina Park once again- if anything because I liked to mentally be there. Even in my breathing years, when I was staring into the factory-induced everlasting dusk of depressing London, my mind would always come back to the late Victorian calmness and vigor of Yaddo. The centennial trees were starting to shape themselves inside my inner eyes.

"Sylvia! I got one here for check up and check-in. Just found her as I was driving back from NYC."

Archie barged in, puffing smoke out of his last cigarette, the one he is never going to finish. Trailing behind him was a known face, face of a girl, framed by the pigtails of red hair, with a red bullet wound on her temple.

It took me a moment to remember where I had seen her before.

She passed me by this morning in Yaddo, reciting her poem. Back then she was still alive.

Now she was dead. And she seemed happy.


	2. The Dress of Blood and Spring

_Dress of Blood and Spring_

For a moment I couldn't believe the coincidence. Then, deep, deep inside it felt somehow _right._ It was one of those perfect serendipitous moments. Those among us that are reborn blessed with Pythian gift call it Kismet. Sudden realization of some unknown great plan, invisible strands of pure fate, untangling and then reforming to quilt a perfect weave.

It was her indeed. Young, laughing literary aspirant, I have seen cruising along the Katring forest this very morning. And according to her Deathmark she had shot herself

Her hair was done into two same neatly done pigtails. Her green dress reached down to the knee. Silliness of her girly haircut and cheerful spring wardrobe was starkly contrasted by the pallor of round face, a black pair of wounds on the sides of her temples and dark specs of blood on the green satin of her dress. The exit wound, ugly charred red hole, was tilted towards the front of the forehead, ending a few millimeters above her right eye, which was red with pooled blood. She made no pretty sight. Yet despite there was no fear on her face.

Only smile.

Doing the best I could to look reassuring and trying desperately to hide my surprise, I turned to Archie:

"She was the only one?"

Archie grinned and flicked the imaginary speck of dust from his leather jacket:

"I found a jumper down in Albany too, but Prescott had claimed him for his own. Said there was some foul play involved."

"That's bollocks and you know it Arch! Prescott sees foul play everywhere. He's just pulling the wool over your eyes to get more spears."

Archie shrugged nonchalantly: "Maybe. I couldn't stand up to him anyway. He had half the Albany's Executioners clanking behind him."

I sighed. Prescott was the Grim Legion's reaper. Always ready to jump and somersault through mental and rhetorical hoops in order to prove that every enfant he manages to stumble upon died a violent death.

"You're right Arch. I'm sorry for snapping at you.", He hand-waved and reassuringly smiled in response to my apology. I showed the girl inside with a wave of my hand., "I'm on the edge today."

"No probs, Syv. Everyone is." Arch showed me the A-OK sign, puffed another cloud of purple spirit mist out of his eternally burning cigarette and was gone. I was left solo with the girl whose passion for poetry I drank just a couple of hours ago.

"Oh my God, you are really Sylvia Plath." She started with the amount of enthusiasm that seemed out of place for a despair victim. Curiouser and curiouser, Alice dear. " I have taken your poetry as an advanced literary course in my summer semester." Before I could have said anything to stop the everlasting torrent of sugar-coated admiration she started: "I have done it again/ One year in every ten /I manage it…"

I didn't roll my eyes, nor did I stop her, I snapped my hundred dollar smile on, and pretended I hadn't heard this one a plethora of times before in the last thirty five years. What is it with _Lady Lazarus_ and young suicidal people anyway? On the other hand, she had just offed herself only to be woken up by a mysterious stranger. Small wonder Lady Lazarus comes to her mind. As she recited, I took some time to try to discern strength of her Shadow. The forces of Oblivion that pull onto every wraith's soul are invisible to most, but a trained eye can, if given enough time for observation, perceive certain hidden characteristics. An inky glint in the pupils. Unconscious twitching in the fingertips, as if they are yearning to clutch somebody's windpipe. She showed none of the symptoms. There were some traces of sludgy darkness around her head wound, cancerous emptiness pulsating in her blood shot eye, but overall, the pull of Oblivion was surprisingly weak. Strange for a suicide victim. The Shadow usually grows stronger if the person's Psyche is tormented by depression, fear, hate or despair.

"Well thank you, dear", I kept on smiling. Row of white teeth on unnaturally rosy face. -When I wrote that I couldn't have dreamt that it would still be remembered and beloved. Now tell me your name, age and manner of death."

"Zoey Cianni. I was born on 6th of July 1979. That would make me nineteen, had I lived a couple of weeks more. I shot myself. You gonna ask me why Mrs. Plath?"- Her voice was distressingly calm. Almost cheerful.

"I could hardly be called a Mrs. anymore, Zoey. Till death do us part, remember? The reasons you might have had for taking your own life are your own thing. My job is to welcome you to the Silent Legion."

I paused, dramatically to awaken her curiosity. _You're getting extremely good at this, Syv. Maybe they promote you to the actual NYC haunted house. From struggling poet, to small city clerk, to bona fide Necropolis bureaucrat. Someone is moving up in the old Underworld!_

"Silent Legion is one of the eight Legions of the Stygian Hierarchy, and Stygian Hierarchy is the regime under which this underworld is organized. Every wraith is assigned to one of the Legions according to causes of his or her death…"

As I recited the usual babble that was expected of me, my eyes never left the contours of Zoey's face. She seemed mildly interested but otherwise unperturbed. Still as I spoke about passions

"Your base passions are those things that are saving you from slipping into fate far worse than death. Here you exist in the form of raw, unrefined emotion. Desire made ectoplasm. Think of the passions that have moved you while you were alive: beautiful things like love, empathy or inspiration. Now think of those less beautiful, but still life-defining urges like ambition, drive for vengeance and lust. They are all you are now. They bind you to this place. Without them you are but a snack for the Oblivion, for darkness and decay which lurk around us and within us. You will hear some of the people here telling you that you should let go of your passions in order to "transcend" to higher emanations of existence. They are lying, Zoey. All of them are aware or unaware servants of Spectres, those abominable creatures that lurk within the Tempest. There is no other afterlife than this. It's better to keep that in mind."

 _Clap, Clap. You struck it home gal. More ominous than a murder of Poe's Ravens._

" Also I have to remind you that every interaction with the living is strictly prohibited by Charon's Law. There are ways to interact with the world beyond the Veil, and you are going to be tempted.", I was unable to continue. The thorns of the past came slowly piercing my Psyche; turning me into a tide pool of sharp, enjoyable, sorrow.

Would it be different if I had told them? If I had just told them!

 _But Syv, darling you cannot remember a thing. You barely remember…_

The car! The dull rhythm of two-stroke terror crashing dully against my skull. Making me sleep.

Making me forget…

Forget…

It lasted for less than a second and then it was gone. There was no use trying to hold onto I smiled.

"Do you have any questions? If not you can proceed to Clerk Kyle Pozdolsky His office is on the second floor, third door to the left. He will assign you your Haunt. In the beginning you will probably be placed in the one of communal Haunts until you are…"

"Do you know where can I find Cleo?", She interrupted me. Surprised as I was, I welcomed the interruption. I felt those tiny strings of fate moving again, like the lithe body of conjurer's cobra. And it felt right. ", I came here to find her. That's why I shot myself."

"Cleo? How do you mean you shot yourself to find her?"

Zoey's good eye started shining with fiery fervor: "She spoke to me. And after she spoke to me I would write. She showed me the depths of sorrow, black and oily and she gave me the pail to draw the best words from eat. She taught me how to write, and I knew she was there because she told me of her death by the sea. There was fog, and the rivers underneath were frozen. And I dreamt her, and I would walk along the old rooms of Yaddo and the words would come to me. I felt miserable until she came to my life, I was nobody. Mousy pigtailed girl with braces skinny legs and no one to love her. And then she would come, she would whisper and the worlds would open before me. Oh yes, those were great fucking worlds"

She spoke and giggled maniacally while rocking back and forth. I was taken aback. For a moment I wanted to shout, to call Archie and Hartford, to make them take the fucking psycho away, to drag her to the forges if needs be, but instead I managed only to stammer. I didn't like the voice that came out of me. It was the voice of that frightened girl I have tried to silence when I pushed my head in the gas oven…

"Are you saying someone contacted you while you were alive? Someone from Shadowlands? In Yaddo? Yaddo is my Domain!"

"Yes", she suddenly sat up, rigid as a candlestick in her dress of blood and spring., "she sang to me and spoke to me. You must help me find her. That is why I came here. To seek her out. To find my Muse."

There was a perfect explanation for her superficial calmness, her happy smile, the eerie air about her. It dawned to me that the poor girl was brainwashed from beyond the Veil. In the bloody Yaddo, the very place I was haunting. _My Place!_ I felt sharp and thin bobcat- claws of rage tearing at my corpus from inside.

"You killed yourself to find inspiration. Guess what, gal, I heard those poems of yours as you were walking with your poseur buddies. They are horrendous! I haven't heard worse pretentious shit since my breathing days. And that idiotic suicide melodrama of yours… A voice in your head tells you to write, and you put a fucking gun to your head! You are not even old enough to drink for crying out loud! What did that Cleo, promised you? Eternal life? Infinitude of inspiration? Well guess what, sugarpie! Eternal life here means being stuck in the offices of the revenant bureaucracy with nonexistent retirement plan. And paper is to scarce for scribbling of mad poetesses, because it is made out of actual souls, still screaming and kicking as the Masquers moliate them into household objects."

Dead are extremely empathic. I could feel that I was hurting her. I could almost see sorrow and pain radiating from her as I berated her. I saw bloody tears seeping out of her damaged eye lie black ichor. The Darkness within me chuckled in obscene pleasure. She started shaking:

"I thought you would understand…You of all people. She promised me nothing… She disappeared and I was ordinary again…"

With those words she ran out of my office, crying. I stood there, hating myself for saying it, wishing to go after her. in the end just standing there. And the darkness inside me just laughed and laughed, like demonic army of oh-so-many Little Audreys.


	3. Devil's Dialectics

_Devil's Dialectics_

The ship was quietly cutting the oily surface of the darkness. Our prow stabbed through the pulsating flesh of ashen fog. The Tempest, that all surrounding storm that shrouds the Necropoli of the Underworld was raging all around us. Jeering pandemonium of monstrosities, some of them dwarflike and inhuman, some of them twisted shades of revenant figures that once might have been humans, were outlined somewhere far beyond the mist, teasing my overly active imagination with vague imprints of the horror that lurk somewhere in the cellars of my consciousness. On the deck five of the Steele's mercenaries were gambling with a pair of relic dice. They were ragged bunch of mean looking wraiths, their corpora pale and translucent at parts, their corpora bearing scars made by Spectre claws, grim souvenirs of their hand to hand encounters with the horrors of the Tempest. Most were armed with battered soulforged spears and swords of various designs, from Viking blades to pirate cutlasses, but the man who gave out the uncompromising air of a leader of the bunch, tall, straw haired man of about forty, with bulging eyes, blackened swollen face and long snake of hangman's rope around his neck even had a relic shotgun slung over his shoulder. Hierarchy restless they weren't, but old Steele spent a lot of time convincing me they were trustworthy crowd, battle hardened and worth every Obolus he pays them. And Steele could certainly afford himself good men if he liked. He was the one of the best practitioners of Argos in the New York Necropolis, and in time he became rich enough to commission his own Artifact ship with which he had regularly traversed the Tempest, to other American Necropoli (places some of the oldest wraiths still called "Obsidian kingdom"), and even daring to travel long and dangerous Pathway of Bones that went all the way to Stygia. His traveling fares were also quite expensive, but for me he was always ready to make an exception. In return he wanted me to keep his Shadow in check, because he was feeling that the Old Scratch was getting stronger.

My altercation with Zoey, and the information she gave me couldn't drop off my mind for the rest of my tedious workday. I mulled it over in my mind's mill, and decided to board Steele's ship that very night and report everything to Cletus. I could have gone to my superiors in the Saratoga branch of the Silent Legion, but in the end I choose not to. The line of reasoning behind that was simple enough: Cleo has contacted Zoey in clear violation of Charon's law. Her intention was to brainwash her into taking her own life. That mystical Kismet had brought Zoey to me- only small percentage of the dead arrived into the Underworld- others, lacking strong connections to the Skinlands and powerful passions to keep them going simply disappear into the void of Oblivion. Considering that the Silent Legion had glorified the act of suicide as "snuffing the despair of pointless living and taking one's chances anew" ( _By our Own Hand_ , and let me hear Amen to that, brothers and sisters!) it was not so crazy to assume that maybe one of my comrades had done the deed, probably led by his Shadow. The Shadow could sweet tongue that well enough playing on his potential ambition- new suicide victim could be a new recruit, especially if Cleo managed to inflame its passions for creative self-fulfillment before making her put a gun to her temple. With Regent Dreyne gone to watch over the Manhattan Nihil, there was a certain power gap was left in the ranks of the Legion, and maybe some Shadow- taken Marshall amassing new allies to plot a coup within the ranks of the Quiet. Also, the fact that it was done on the grounds of my Haunt (that was also, unfamiliar to many, my strongest Fetter) still wracked me. I didn't want mischievous gossipers yapping behind my back. I was part of this old revenant sorority long enough to know that a few sharp tongues can hack you apart better than a sword of Stygian steel.

I also couldn't stop beating myself about the harsh words that I have said to Zoey. I could call it brutal honesty; I could sugarcoat it, whipped cream it and serve it with spring strawberries for all the good it would do for my guilty guts, but in truth I had been a real bitch and now I have felt responsible to her. Before departing I told Archie to keep an eye on her, and makes sure she does nothing stupid, because self destructive decisions are a lot like buttered popcorn. Once you indulge it's hard to stop.

Steele came down from the quarterdeck, and walked towards me. He was an old man, his narrow, sharply chiseled face adorned with bushy gray beard, his hair a white mane falling down his shoulders and leaving his wrinkled temples and top of his head bare. In his breathing days he had been a pharmacist in Saratoga during the Gilded age. He died in his pharmacy, struck by a heart attack in the ripe years of eighty eight, as Wilson was running for his first term in White House. Post-mortem, he had been reaped into the Iron Legion, most numerous of Hierarchy Legions, which was recruiting victims of old age.

"Shall we start?"- he asked me as he ominously gazed into the swirling thick fog crowded with inhuman Shapes- "I can almost hear those demons calling it. And He speaks to me."- he shuddered and leaned towards me to speak in my ear.-"He tells me I should steer my ship towards them."

I turned around uneasily. Gray shapes jeering us with slurs and inarticulate shrieks didn't seem closer. On the other hand, spatiality meant little around here.

"Fine. Walk with me!"

His Shadow wasn't stronger than usual- there was no taint of inner darkness on his irises, no nervous twitching- but Steele was always a careful wraith. Coming from the old puritan stock, he knew the importance of keeping one's darker passions at bay before they run rampart over his afterlife.

Using the Arcanos of Castigate to fight one's Shadow follows a complicated procedure- after discerning its relative strength; you had to pierce its intentions. Every Shadow had its own voice, the technique it used to tempt, bully or cow its victim. Its voice was only heard by the wraith, but there was a certain method of targeted questions Castigators used to force it to reveal itself and thus become vulnerable to Castigators purifying attack. Castigators called it "the Devil's Dialectics". I personally preferred the name "Devil's psychoanalysis" because it reminded me of many frustrating therapist sessions I was attending while I was alive.

 _And look what good those sessions did you Syv. Actually, after all these years, you can proudly call yourself a functioning member of society. Beyond the grave society, to be honest but still..._

Our feet were thud-thudding along the moliated wood. A ribald tide of cheers and curses erupted from starboard as one of the mercenaries had won. It made great counterpoint to the inhuman screams that were floating through the fogs of Tempest. I closely observed Steele's weathered face. In an instant, a wild howl of banshee-mouthed wind had struck the ship bringing fragments of insane ravings- obscene chattering of souls who exist only to sow apathy and destruction and reap their inner darkness. I could see, the Shadow emerging, somewhere in Tartharian depths of eyes its dark spark flickered responding with delight to the impish cackle of its brethren. I choose that moment to act and try to call upon Steele's Shadow:

"Do you really think Mr. Steele is crazy enough to steer this ship towards those monsters? It would accomplish nothing then get him in trouble. He has not parted with his reason to listen to the likes of you."

There was reaction, innocent at first, Steele's head tilting left as if listening in to some inner conversation, before his features changed. It was change so abrupt, yet so freakishly _natural_ and logical in its character. His chin became more jutting, the lines of age etched along the face of his corpus became deeper and lips twisted themselves into tired, but somehow lascivious sneer. It was as if I was facing older, or to be more precise, _ancient_ Abraham Steele, debauched ancestor of his brought back from shameful memories. The shadow answered spitefully:

"He had listened to me for the entirety of his life, girl. Without me, he would have accomplished nothing. He was a failure still, never doing the right thing, forgiving everyone's debts it the times of plenty, and then croaking and leaving his grandchildren to pay of mortgages on his run-down little snake-oil shop. And now, he is here, doing the same thing again, wasting his hard earned Oboli on Necropoli scum deserving only of forges. Drive those guns for hire towards the Spectres, says I, make them earn their wages."

I couldn't suppress a victorious grin. Purifying this particular Shadow was going to be easier than catching fish in a barrel. It had obviously appealed to Steele's Yankee work ethics and his small town mentality. I mused a bit and then decided to place another question just to be certain:

"You are not satisfied with what two of you have accomplished thus far? After, all, you managed to buy a nice ship down in Stygia, and Mr. Steele is, once again, a respected citizens of New York Necropolis."

"Two of us!"- it spat- "Without me he would have been sold to thralldom as soon as he left his caul! He is incompetent, naïve idiot, driving himself to ruin because of his bleeding, woman's heart."

"You'd fare better on your own, wouldn't you?"- I waved my hand dramatically, rising my voice over the growl & grin of the Tempest- "Out there in the sea of the eternal night, unconcerned with this old fool. But you cannot, can you? Tell me why is that? Why is he, meek as a woman, as you say, too strong for you?"

"Because, he refuses to listen!" - the Shadow roared in impotent rage.- "He would rather wallow in mediocrity then become someone. He was messing around with retorts and beakers instead of running for offices or dealing in land development. And now he risks his skin for people who don't give a Charon's spit about him."

I have heard enough. It was time to bring this Scrooge down a notch or two. Most Castigators used old medieval methods like flagellation or quasi-magical chanting, but I had different approach. I grabbed Steele's shoulder, found blue clarity of his eyes and started.

" Argonauts, we sail forth

Golden Fleece.

beckoning from the folds of your pupil

Who made the wells clear?

Have I distanced myself

Took it too hard

Ages cut from the blue fabric of reality

We can absolve

we can resolve"

I watched the pale blue of his irises become more prominent. Steele was returning stronger than ever. It always worked that way. Chants and prayers were only distilled rhythms, hypnotic patterns used to focus the Psyche and bring her into state of higher awareness. Old romanticists said same about lyrical poetry. Over time, I became better at improvising those weird little verses that would remain unwritten.

( _All for the better, gal. Don't you remember it…)_

Steele came back and smiled, showing row of perfect pearly teeth. He always bragged about parting with his life before he had parted with any of his chompers. I smiled right back. Fighting other people's demons always managed to restore my emotional batteries.

"By Jove, You got it to shut up Miss Plath!"- he exclaimed merrily-" You can come aboard anytime, free of any charge, as long as you keep doing that. Thank you, from all of my heart."

"You are welcome, Mr. Steele. It is part of my job after all. If our ambitions and dreams had been cruelly cut short while we wore our meat-chains, now we are in a place in which we have entire eternity to perfect ourselves. To do those things that make us feel strong inside. To quest for our Fleece of Gold. To quest and to dream. What is death without dreaming, after all?"

And I smiled into the raging night.


	4. The Murder Ballad

The murder ballad

The walls of ancient Stygia spread themselves out before us like flower petals submerged in the barrel full of darkness. The watery moat of Sea of Sorrows surrounded it- entire armies of lost, mindless souls forged into a thick, mucous membrane that separated the Charon's city from wail and groan of the Tempest. The Souls trapped in the wall let out a shriek of their own, millions of faces contorted into a single frameless expression of pain and horror, ther words merging into a single, babbling scream. I did not shudder, because long ago I have suffocated the last of my terror…

 _(A hand. Reaching. Feeling the rough terrycloth skin. So like Ted's before his morning shave. The sense of calm, followed by the short and oh-so-familiar embrace of panic. Cletuses face, adorned with surprised smile floating above my new, hollow eyes. Tatters of my caul, my second womb, dancing on the sharp wind that had scourged the shores of Styx ever since the first man died. Every hurt, every sorrow, every little defeat disappeared that day. You like to believe that, Syv?)_

By Charon, I do _._

We followed the gloomy waters of Styx through the small gate guarded by Legion's dromonds. Isle of Sorrows looked tiny before our prow. Hundreds of buildings spurted out of it, cluttering it with the variety of wild Non-Euclidian shapes. There were old factory chimneys, jutting out of the flat roofs of Venetian and Roman villas, ancient temples adorned with visages of gods, known and forgotten. Lighthouse of Alexandria greeted us as we plunged into the mouth of Stygian harbor, green barrowflame flashing on its summit, more than five hundred feet above us. Stygia was pure and undiluted platonic idea of a city, comprised of every building that had been destroyed, whether by man or by the cold and uncompromising tooth of time, and afterwards remembered by the living or by the dead. Its streets were meandering, ever- changing corridors, defined as new important buildings were reduced to ruins in the Skinlands and rebuild in the blink of an eye here, in the middle of bleak raging Tempest that surrounded everything. Skyscrapers, medieval feast-halls, churches and castles, great walls of Hadrian and Trajan, wonders of the World and fondly remembered ale-houses and jazz-clubs, soul of every dead building, loved or hated assembled the Capital of the Restless.

After fondly parting with Steele and arranging for my return in day's time I set out to find a messenger. The courier thralls were easily found in the Stygian harbor. They were the skilled and fast wraiths, trained to quickly navigate the chaos of Stygian roads. Mine was a small boy, with auburn hair, leaning on the twisted iron of the burned out gas streetlight. The will-o-wispy light shone down of him, as he silently walked a dog with his yo-yo. I took a half-obolus out of my small, moliated money-purse.

"Can you find me Anacreon Cletus?" The boy nodded without lifting his eyes. Blood was matting crown of his head, scarlet pearls in the glory of gaslight.

"Tell him Sylvia Plath wants to see him. I will be waiting for him in the Five Spot Café."

"Yes, miss."- He muttered shyly still eyeing the paved street beneath his feet. Yo-yo in his right hand swung like a pendulum of fast fleeing childhood as his left hand palmed the half-coin. Then he was off, skittering across the docks and disappearing down the brick- paved lane, behind one of "Ye old Shoppe's" that have mushroomed across the docks. I went along the different street. Bricks gave way to dirt-road which gave way to the glimmering asphalt. Row of houses, in equal parts ancient and modern, stretched beside me. Wraiths were abundant here, commuting the streets, hurrying along, where their passions and duties led them. Behind its maddening Lovecraftian scenery the City of the Dead was like any other modern city – relic cars and streetcars cruised the roadways, and endless crowds of commuters cluttered the pavements. On the corner of two well- trafficked streets, medieval juggler was amusing the passer-byes, collecting the Oboli in the small clay pot. Right across him jazz sax-player in the brown Macintosh was busking for more recently deceased. I turned left, and found Five Spot Café snuggled between two high- rise buildings obviously delivered from Victorian East End. I walked into its comfortingly dim yellow light. Elderly wraith, dressed in the black double-buttoned south was manning the black marble bar, although there were no drinks to be served- only warm, yellow smile of hospitality. It was probably enough for those who yearned to feel welcome somewhere. Two wraiths dressed in medieval doublets, bearing emblems of Iron Legion on their breasts were chatting in the corner. On the stage the swing band was playing a slow dance number. The singer had a firm, tender voice. The front of his suit was torn by half a dozen bullet holes but he paid no mind. Song filled the air like smoke.

"Sunday is gloomy, my hours are slumberless;  
Dearest, the shadows I live with are numberless;  
Little white flowers will never awaken you,  
Not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you;  
Angels have no thought of ever returning you;  
Would they be angry if I thought of joining you?"

Instinctively, I took a table on my left. Barring the two iron-legionaries that seemed out of place the rag-tag band of dead jazz musicians and the elderly barkeep the place was empty. I knuckled the slow, rhythm on the table's redwood surface and drank the melancholy emanating from the singer. There were rare things you could enjoy after you died; emotions were best of them. The feeling of sorrow, good, creative sorrow that had embraced the bitterness of loss and turned it into beauty overwhelmed me. I was one with the song, climbing and descending with the sad melody, becoming a droplet in the river that flew from the sobbing saxophone. It felt depressing. It felt powerful.

"Are you giving yourself to the music or to the despair?"- Cletus snuck in and brough me back from my reverie. He stood above me, his handsome, roughly chiseled face, wearing the same expression of dolorous irony he always donned while greeting people. It was an expression I've grown to love over time- an expression that betrayed he was in good spirits. He wore his full armor- breastplate of soulforged steel, Roman helmet with blood red fanned crest. On his belt were the relic dagger he had used to open his veins and his arming sword forged of deadly Stygian steel. The Stygian steel was most prized metal in the Underworld. Mined from the depths of Oblivion and forged by secret method, known only to the great masters of Stygian Artificer Guild it had the ability to carve wraith's corpus to shreds. It was worn only by most prestigious members of the Hierarchy.

"A bit of both, Anacreon."- I smiled briefly before remembering what follows this exchange of courtesies. - "Please sit down. I have black news."

"I don't doubt that at all, Sylvia."- he lowered himself gracefully to sit across me. The band had played the last chords of the "Gloomy Sunday" and had moved into the next song. The clarinet intro was bone-chilling, ominous and merry at the same time. It was some weird ballad I never heard before. The singer had stepped forward. There was shudder of something alien in his eyes as he sung, raven-like rasp stretching out from his throat. It was not a jazz number but something else, something older and more sinister:

"Why does your sword so drip with blood,  
Edward, Edward?  
Why does your sword so drip with blood?  
And why so sad are you, O?'  
' I have killed my hawk so good,  
Mother, mother:  
I have killed my hawk so good:  
And I had no more but him"

"I am sure good news wouldn't have made you travel this far from the grounds of your beloved Yaddo."- His eyes pierced me, knowingly. Distracted by the dark turn of the song I made an effort to speak.

"Yaddo is what I want to talk about, Cletus. Someone had been reaching across the veil. On my haunting grounds. I heard that from a newly reaped recruit. She killed herself just moments after I saw her on the other side."

Cletuses face became stern as he straightened himself up in his seat. He was an ancient wraith, his corpus paled and tattered scarred by many battles that he fought on behalf of the Hierarchy. Although he killed himself as a dishonored old general, charged with treason by an insane Emperor, his corpus was that of a man in the summit of his natural strength, his stance dignified, his facial expressions discreet but telling:

"Tell me everything, Sylvia. Start from the beginning and leave nothing out."

I started with the visage of Zoey reciting her poem to the group of her friends, continued with her appearance in the offices of the Silent legion, retold her story and shared my speculations and doubts related to possibility that Cleo might be a member of our legion that had transgressed. Cletus watched me, without any trace of emotion on his wide, symmetrical face. The song ululated behind us, getting louder as the hero admitted to his mother that he hadn't actually killed his hawk or his horse but his father. When he spoke, his voice was silent but he somehow managed to make himself heard above the clarinet's howl:

"It was nobody's fault but yours, Sylvia. Maintaining Charon's law on the grounds of your Haunt is your duty. A _sacred_ duty. You wanted me to give you Yaddo. Huge place, still inhabited by the living, still active in the Skinlands. When I wanted to at least deploy some troops to help you watch over your Haunt, you refused, most aggressively if I remember it right."

"Yaddo means a lot to me, and it would mean nothing to your soldiers. It was where I have grown to accept who I am, Anacreon…- he cut me off by raising his hand.

"I know. It is also one of your Fetters. You insisted that you could take care of such a huge Haunt. I told you that many wraiths of higher rank contend themselves with a single room or a single run down house. I done you a favor, Sylvia. And you disappointed me."

"I didn't want some sword-hands hanging around my neck. Yaddo was different. It was _everything_ to me. I wanted to be myself there, I wanted to be Sylvia Plath, not some platoon commander who shares her most intimate feelings with bunch of steel-clad military folks who care only to do her duty."

"Nonsense!" –he snapped at me. I recoiled in my seat.- You were supposed to do your duty and your duty was keeping that haunt secure! Your sentimentality had gotten the best of you, and I am telling you, it will mean Oblivion for you one of those days. Following one's heart is fine, but you must not forget that there are vile things out there and that every citizen of the Hierarchy is supposed to keep them down where they belong."

I started to say something but swallowed my words. When man like Cletus decided to give you some verbal trashing you took it without doing anything that could anger him more, and possibly wake his Shadow. Waking a Shadow of someone that powerful could easily mean years of thralldom, or even forges.

"Biting off more than you can chew is a forgivable transgression when you are still breathing, but over here it means playing with fire"- he seemed to be winding down. He was in a great mood after all. -"You were careless, but it's understandable for someone so young and idealistic and I am ready to help you. Charon knows you were a honorable worker , independent but capable. I might know something about the person you were talking about. About Cleo. I have never met her but heard about her a long time ago." He leaned forward to speak, his voice dropping to faint whisper. "She was a respected person in old Stygia in the old times, before Charon ended the guilds. I am surprised she still…"

A shot rang out suddenly. The music reached its crescendo, clarinet mourning with unbridled ferocity. Cletuses face exploded as relic bullet cut through the ectoplasm with sickeningly wet impact, like sound of apple hitting the moist grass under the tree. He slumped forward, his corpus starting to fade. The singer was grinning at me, his face contorted mask, as he held an old battered .38 out in front of himself. Somebody screamed. Two Geezers who were talking in the cornered rushed out, eerily silent in their fear. Song stopped. I saw piano player slam the lid on his relic instrument and brandish a long soulforged dagger. The others musicians quickly, all four of them, brandished blades, seemingly out of nowhere.

 _(Don't be stupid girl. You weren't paying attention. This is Stygia! Everyone here packs some iron!)_

"There you are, whore!"- Singer cackled, alien insanity clouding his eyes.- You die whore, you die and then they tear you up, limb by limb. You know too much, whore and smartass whores get _punished!"_

The clarinet cried as the band closed in on me. Fear gripped me in its loving embrace.


	5. Kismet

_Kismet_

( _Here it ends little girl…Remember your last foray into the Labyrinth? Remember how you screamed and begged and pleaded when Ted torched those notebooks? You really think you can go through this once again? Remember Syv, remember, happy voices of Frieda and Nick, remember hands grasping this damn towel again and again…Remember. Remember as they bash your pathetic corpus in and make you watch the lives your weakness had ruined…Remember the stream where salmons come to spawn…)_

Clarinet's dirge filled my mind with freezing horror as I made toe- curling effort to clear my head. Dire melody tided around me, swirling in the tones of pale purple and gray. Cletuses prostate corpus faded before me, look of impotent surprise still frozen on his stern face. As he paled out, his Stygian steel sword clanked on the floor and sharp metal purity of the sound made me snap out of the music that had filled my head with images best left suppressed. Two of them were closing in on me, coming from my right side and cutting off my access to the door. One of them was the piano player with long, vicious looking dagger. The other was the singer still muttering obscenities, every dark verbalized thought etched in twisted features of his face, his wounds seeping dark flush of death. In his hand he clutched his relic .38 for some reason still not firing at me. The other two have grabbed the poor barkeep. He pleaded with them as they carved his corpus into strips, their blades whooshing and singing, insane faces jeering and mocking his pleas. And somewhere, on the edges of my sanity, the "Kismet" appeared again. The chain's of fate rattled somewhere deep inside and then, in some strange, serene way I became aware of everything in that same exact moment.

The hand of the old barkeep, oozing crimson ectoplasm was pointing towards the small booth on my left hand side. Inside it stood the private table, surrounded by two seats upholstered in red velvet. There was something about the red brick wall behind the seat. Something in the way it seemed to protrude oddly drawing me to caress its comforting, rough surface. My rational mind was desperately aware of the irrationality of that wish. But this was no business for rational mind; for mind of bureaucratic tangles, problem solving and academic thinking. It was time for prehensile insect mind of the poet and mad prophet to take over.

I let it go and arthropod' s intuition, clear in my terror, made me notice again. Index finger, twitching, sensing the cold tension of the trigger. I feinted low to the left. The bullet whistled, nicking my cheek but coming too late and do any serious damage. The dagger- pianist charged me, the future movements of his dagger roughly sketched out somewhere in the Great Beyond of my consciousness. I slammed into him, steel of his blade, to my horror whispered as it stabbed my shoulder.

I yelped, retreating from him. My hand groped and found a loose brick above the seat. Not knowing what exactly is going to happen next, I pushed.

I had but a moment to register a distant mechanical sound, loud enough to dim the clarinet's cry. Then the floor beneath my feet opened and I started falling downwards. There was a look of surprise on my assailant's face. Sweet, intoxicating odor of rotting apples crawled into my nostrils as my knees slammed painfully into the hard concrete.

"Where did the whore fall? Hullooo whore, you smart-ass whore…We're coming from you."

The voice crooned from above. Clarinet was silent, but there were screams, inhuman, metallic screams, coming from drawn blades. I ran and stumbled through the dark, far from the trapdoor through which I have escaped. Tripping, I heard glass bottles rattle. There where voices, shouting abuse right behind me:

"That was prime move, bitch! But we're coming for you! For you and your little pup!"

There was sound of someone's feet hitting the concrete floor. Then a shot rang out, screaming somewhere above me. I tasted the sour ectoplasm that bled from the cut in my cheek and blindly ran along what seemed to be some kind of corridor, arms extended, groping the darkness before me. Before too long, I knew there must be door to the left of me, and when I reached for it, I felt the warn reassurance of a brass doorknob and shouted with relief. I turned it, and then I leaned against a door. My hands, still fiddling automatically, found a latch to bar the door before my pursuers, while their curses and threats rang inside my pulsating head.

The room was small and cluttered with boxes. Relic of an old gas stove reclined in the corner. Large iron bathtub in the middle, one of those old luxurious things, standing on four clawed feet. And, Charon be blessed, there was a window right by the ceiling. I smashed the glass and managed to crawl out ( _of_ _your third uterus, Syv)_ into the welcoming barrow-light of Stygian street. Behind me, I heard the old relic door smash and splinter. I ran across, evading a relic streetcar, swerving around the heavily-armored legionnaire knight, frightening his Spectral steed. I dashed through narrow alleyways that snaked around the ancient medieval houses, derelict and dirty but still thought about by many. Running wildly and blindly, my loafered feet thudding across the worn out cobblestones, and it was when I dove out on a long Boulevard of dreams, old cinema-halls flashing long dead neon across the gray asphalt of a billion yesterdays that I had finally realized I managed to escape my pursuers. My kismet was gone, and I felt lost. My head was thudding, my shoulder stung with vicious pain, and I was exhausted and empty. Only pleasure I felt were the paroxysms of impotent rage my own Shadow was going through. I wandered aimlessly, for how long I don't know, trying desperately not to think. Past figments come and went, like snippets of ominous radio-news heard through the open window, soundbites of fear you can never turn off. Cletus is stuck in Harrowing. Despite his strength he is old, he's been here for almost two thousand years  & I cannot be sure he is going to come out of this one. He tried to tell me something before. I should report that he's gone, but the geography of Stygia is everchanging and I don't know in which direction is the Legion's citadel. There's emptiness. I could find a patrolling legionnaire I guess. By Charon, how awful must I look? There are no patrols here, this neighborhood is safe. Then I stopped in my tracks, as a single shout was repeated in my mind, painful as memory.

 _But we're coming for you! For you and your little pup!_

Zoey! If anyone knew more about Cleo than me it was her. And she was there in Saratoga, all by herself. If they wanted to give me to the Oblivion for knowing that Cleo exists, Charon knows what could they do to Zoey.

 _(How does it feel, huh? You abandoned her there, after crushing her hopes. And you have nerve to think Cleo is some kind of a villain?_

Cold panic crawled along my palms, quietly snaking up my wrists. I have forgotten that Zoey might be in danger. Quickly composing myself I began concentrating. I was trying to visualize the beloved grounds of Yaddo, trying to bring then to my mind's eye to see if Zoey is there somewhere. It was common for newly stiff to visit the place on which they have ended their fleshy days. First there were dim forms of trees, echoing in the corners of my vision. Outlines of Katrina Park came slowly into the focus, like a Polaroid photograph being developed slowly before my eyes. There were no quick taking their walks beyond the Veil, small wonder since my inner timepiece told me it was after. There image was perfectly clear, and I tried to shift my mental focus, actively searching for one spring-green dress adorned with blood. It was hard, and after one of the commuters, a tall wraith in a gray homburg that had walked out of "Sirius" movie- hall, bumped into me, the image floated and was dangerously close to vanishing.

"Come on, come on, Zoey! I'll personally murder you again if you let something happen to you!" - I muttered quietly.

Despite my efforts the image inside me began to darken and fade. I was too tired, and things I have been through earlier were bringing me out of focus, clouding me. I was ready to give up, when I saw her. She trod absently like a shell-shocked moonwalker towards the small wooden gazebo. I knew that Gazebo well. It had dominated one of the many sun- filled glades of Yaddo estate, on the eastern side, where the cultivated grounds gave way to the thick, dark forests that stretched all the way from Yaddo to Saratoga Springs. Before the image completely disappeared I glimpsed her, stopping suddenly and craning her neck to one side, as if she heard something or someone, sneaking viciously behind her. Getting closer!

"Oh fuck me!"- I growled as my concentration broke and the image disappeared. It will probably take me hours to find my way back to the Stygian harbor. Even if I found a ship right away, it is going to take me couple more hours to get to New York necropolis and probably six or seven more to walk to Saratoga. If someone was after Zoey, it is going to be too late and I had nothing, no way to warn her, no way to get to her. All my abilities seemed as useful as an ashtray on front of a bicycle.

I walked on, beaten down, hoping I'm going to spy the familiar shadow of Pharos lighthouse calling me through the grey mist of the horizon. I walked and I walked, and although the pavements seemed empty I was crowded. There were memories rubbing against me, and there was despair, following in my footsteps, aching like a strained muscle at the end of a long run. Somewhere, on the other side of the Tempest was Zoey, alone and frightened, and I couldn't even pray for her.

I knew prayers are words. And words are futile.


	6. Archie

Archie

There was only one thing that kept Archie Stannon going after he decided to run his twilight-red Corvette down the cliff and that one thing was speed. Before that, there were two things, but then his high school sweetheart decided that she loved this goody two shoes Walt better and one night, after a dozen bourbons too many, Archie decided life makes no sense. So he lit his last cigarette, stepped on the pedal and decided to ignore the fact that the road was at its end and that deep abyss ending in junkyard was eight hundred feet below it. There went one hell of a ride and the other one started just a moment afterwards, when two legionaries cut him out of his caul and gave him a job. It surely did beat his old job that had been cleaning puke and piss from the floor of the "Bonanza" club in Saratoga. He hadn't complained then and he hadn't complained now. His old Vette, followed him straight to afterlife, a rare relic that has caused a lot of envy back at the offices. Archie loved their envy, because he spent most of his short life being envious of others- of the straight-A's student and quarterback Walt who managed to get all the girls (including Molly), of the stupid preps who didn't have to clean hillbilly piss to get themselves through college, of his friend Mitch who was an officer in the navy (when Archie applied, he was rejected because he had bad hearing in one ear).

Now there was road in front of him, straight and wide, and never mind the Skinlands traffic because Vette could ride straight through them. His last cigarette had also traveled here with him (he could remember watching it for close to half an hour in drunken haze, telling to himself that he is never again going to feel strong, coaly Malboro smoke burning his throat) and now he was smoking and rushing along Union Avenue to reach Yaddo. Sylvia had begged him to take care of the young charge he had reaped yesterday and he couldn't say no. As soon as he checked on his fetters (lovers lane where he and Molly often hung out was still there, and still popular with college and high-school couples, Molly was still alive, divorced from Walt, and running a beauty shop here in Saratoga, and his baby brother Chris was coaching a junior baseball team in Hoboken, New Jersey) and drove around his usual route to check if there are any freshly dead souls waiting to be out of their cauls, he was on it. He and Syv were peers, both meeting their deaths in the early sixties, and in world like this it was good to have someone who understood your jokes, enjoyed the same pictures and listened to same music (the last was a slight point of disagreement, since Syv could never appreciate Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry the way Archie appreciated them). If the girl was still around he was bound to find her at Yaddo, near the old gazebo next to which he found her caul- the freshly dead loved to see the place where they ended their breathing days, he never met one that didn't. The girl looked genuinely lost, rushing out of the office. Archie didn't blame her. Many of them did, it wasn't easy, wanting to end it all only to see you get a two story Hierarchy office instead of eternal bliss. Archie never freaked out, though. He adored fresh beginnings. Always a sunrise, never a twilight kind of person, he was.

Going sixty miles an hour on the public road was the most beautiful thing one could imagine. His Corvette drove straight through cars, cyclists and one 18 wheeler truck. It was beyond simply having the road to yourself. Only he and his car truly existed, everything else was merely a landscape, scenery for him to surge through. Rusting cars, buildings with faded, dirty walls, and withered trees he was running straight through them, invisible and harmless. He was singing about sweet little sixteen when his eyes widened like dinner place at what he saw.

There were wraith soldiers in the middle of the road, Lethe warriors all five of them, by the look of their armor, glistening white soulsteel adorned with intricate symbol of the Silent legion. Their viciously long spear tips cut the fragile streams of light that glowed out his headlights. They were right in his way and it took all of his driver's reflexes to stop, less than an inch before them. Tires screamed. Brakes strained painfully, like hydraulic muscles. Lethe warriors never stirred. The one in front, scraggy weasel-faced fellow, just kept shifting his spear from one hand to the other. Left to right. Archie couldn't guess whether that was sign of nervousness or the guy simply seemed amused at the prospect of 500 pounds of speeding metal slamming into him and sending him straight to Oblivion. With Lethe lunatics you never knew. One of the guys walked to the car, his footsteps seemingly uneasy, and rapped on driver seat window. Archie lowered the window pane. The man was decked in full-plate armor, his visor raised to reveal dark piercing eyes. There was no guessing of his age, but something in the way he talked made Archie guess that he had drawn his last breath at least centuries, if not millennia ago.

"Wherever might you be going, my lord?"- Archie almost laughed. "My lord"! Not "sir" not "citizen", but "his lord". Although all wraiths understood each other perfectly, often manner of speaking could reveal one's background. And there were no discussing Duke's flicks with this bloke; you could be a hundred percent positive about that.

"Driving up to Yaddo on some business. _Legion business!"-_ he underscored. The forest around them was dark. Somewhere in Skinlands, horses began to scream. They were only half a minute drive away from Saratoga Horse Show, but Archie still felt uneasy.

"Yaddo?"- the knight paused as if thinking.- "Are you aware that Yaddo is haunted by Sylvia Plath, clerk of the Silent Legion."

"Yes, I am quite aware. I am also a clerk in the Silent Legion, and Sylvia asked me for a favor."

"Do you know where she might be right now?"

"Away in Stygia, officially.

"Pray tell, my lord, what kind of favor are you doing for her?"

"And how exactly is that you business?"- Archie snapped. The footman closed in on the car. Archie didn't care. Even in this weird Underworld, the '54 Corvette was still faster than five grunts dressed in tin cans.

"Lady Plath is wanted by the Stygia magistrates, for attacking two wraiths. One of them was the acting Anacreon of New York City Necropolis Cletus Clavius, the other, William Bancroft, was the fair subject of the Hierarchy and a clerk of Iron Legion. She attacked them this evening in "Five Spot Café" and sent them both to their Harrowing. It would be better for you to cooperate for the good of our realm, otherwise you might come to hardship."

"You are making me laugh, Lancelot! – Despite his agitation Archie chuckled.-Sylvia would never attack Anacreon! Hell she has trouble telling two ends of a sword apart."

"A messenger and a couple of witnesses have sworn she was there. Be it how it may, she is to be taken in for questioning. Speak, what is the nature of the business, which had been bestowed upon you by Lady Plath."

Faceless shapes of legionaries had now surrounded him- there were two on his six, fidgety weasel boy and the broad shoulder guy carrying enormous spear and large kite shield, two more in front of him and this well mannered bastard was leering in his face, one of his hands on the pommel of his sword, other grasping the car-door. There was no driving away without at least hurting one of them, and hurting a Warrior of Lethe could get him in all kinds of trouble. He decided to try and talk his way out of it, so he conjured his "oh I am very sorry face" that had always worked with Molly (or his boss) every time he managed to screw something up:

"Geez, I am truly, sorry mister, I never thought things are THAT serious. I worked with Miss Plath for almost forty years and I never knew she was capable of that. She simply asked me to check upon her haunt, that's it. It's tremendously large, and she is keeping care of it all by herself. If you think I can be of any help with your investigation it would be my honor to serve you."

The face beneath the helmet seemed to soften a bit:

"So only something as plain as that? Very well, my lord, pray would you tell us your name so that we might call upon you later? For now we are going to be watching the road in case she happens to return to her Haunt, but on the morrow we are bound to speak to other Silent Legion employees here to see if anyone had noticed something unusual regarding her behavior. After all, Lady Plath often had close dealings with others inner demons, so it might be that she had simply strayed from the path of the righteous."

"Archibald Stannon. Archie, for friends."- He smiled warmly.

"Centurion Edward of Gwayne Firr, Knight of the Garter, crusader knight, during my breathing days loyal vassal of the King Henry of Bolingbroke, nowadays Centurion of the Silent Legion in Stygia."- The legionary returned courteously and for one funny moment Archie thought he will extend his gauntleted hand to shake with him, right here on the dark road in The Middle of Nowhere, Saratoga County, New York.-"You might be on your way, although if I was you I would have stayed out of Yaddo until the status of Lady Plath becomes clear in the eyes of the Hierarchy. You should report to the local Citadel tomorrow. It is possible that someone will want to talk to you, since you have intimate knowledge of Lady Plath."

"I wish I had, you sweet talking son of a gun."- thought Archie, and nodded, maintaining his stupid golden boy grin. Ser Edward Clanks-a-Lot lowered his visor, and walked away from the car, greeting him with a stiff wave. Legionaries stepped back, letting him drive on. Engine whirred and purred, responding to Archie's passion for the car. Soon he drove on, his thoughts racing along his side. Sylvia was in bad trouble. Bad, bad trouble. Even if her Shadow did make her go loco, there was no way she could kill Cletus. Archie had seen the man; once he even fought beside him, back in 1978, when Undying Mayflower heretics have decided to raise their badly soulforged blades against Charon. He was one dangerous man, damn good with his Stygian Steel blade, cautious and wise. Sylvia had no combat experience whatsoever. In the days of Mayflower Rebellion she worked on inventorying the supply trains here in Saratoga. Besides, she liked Cletus, and he had great trust in her; he gave her Yaddo, that bloody forest art colony she never ever quit talking about. The damn place could house an entire circle of wraiths and she had it all to herself, so she could soak all the poetic vibes or something. That talk about her Shadow taking over also made no sense in hell- no one could keep her Shadow in check, better than Syv; granted, by what he had heard her Shadow was scary, but then again most people in the Silent Legion had scary Shadows. Something was seriously bad about this, it was so bad that you could feel the very word in the air. _Bad_. The sound of it was rapping against the nape of your neck and making your hair stand out, making all the scary, icky feelings you had inside stand up and boogie all over your mind.

He turned left onto the Henning road and after a while drove right through the rusted brass gate. He was there, now he had to find Zoey. When he was a boy, his mom told him that best way to find something you've lost was to pretend you aren't looking for it- just relaxing and letting your legs take you to the place where you had left your toy car or your Captain America comics. He did the same now, just driving aimlessly though the winding forest tail, sometimes even cutting straight through the threatening, skeletal trees when they were in the way. Yet instinctively he was going towards the gazebo in the eastern part of the estate, the one that bordered Adirondack Northway.

He rushed along, his head empty, headlights outlined before him, two lonely sun dogs shinning in the sunless world. He even caught himself singing cheerfully, as he turned the nose of his Vette, left and emerged on the wide lane that ended with the wooden gazebo. Somewhere on his left, the owl hooted, and far away horses screamed. Before too long Archie found out there was music in his head; a beautiful, ululating melody he hadn't heard before. There was something in it that reminded him of the old Billie Holiday records that Molly was sometimes playing, but yet again it seemed older. There were no instruments, only sweet, deep voices singing something that sounded like total gibberish to him. He couldn't make out words, but he knew it was a love song because it stirred him all over, making him happy despite all the things that caused him to worry recently; gone was sir Ed of the Garter (remembering that honorific brought a deep chuckle out of his belly), gone were the accusations brought against Syv, gone were the horse-screams that made him tremble like a movie ticket stub left on the dashboard. He turned sharply left and drove into the woods. He knew singing will be louder there. Closer. Feeling the electrifying tingle as first his motor-car, and then his body dashed through the rotten mast of an old pine tree, he emerged on the shore of a small pond. His mouth opened in the mixture of wonder and pure admiration. He tried to grasp the thing he was seeing but his mind kept slipping on it, the way sweating palms keep slipping on a tool you are trying to grip.

Seen from Skinlands, this pond was probably a boring, decorative lakelet, circled with sedge. On the middle there was a small decorative pontoon, with a plank walkway leading up to it. Zoey stood on the edge of that pier. There was no mistaking that green dress splotched with red. She was staring at the same that had awed Archie.

There was a city deep in the pond, lit with the color of music. It wasn't any color Archie had seen before; any color he thought possible in the world, but he know it was the color of music the moment he laid his eyes upon it. The way it tittered and danced deep in the murky water gave it away. In its light, golden towers stood, tall minarets, and floating castles all reflected at once. There was a huge Ferris wheel turning in tune with the song that was playing in his head. Archie saw no people, but somehow he knew they would be there, he could hear their voices calling him. He could hear their song. And as Zoey, doe-eyed, pushed herself oFf the pier and walked into the lake; Archie already knew he is going to follow along, for if he didn't, the song would end. Delight more powerful than the feeling of Molly's firm breasts under her sweater coursed through him as he got out of the car and stepped inside the music-colored water.

A single name crossed his mind. The name he had decided to keep to himself.


	7. Yaddo

Yaddo

The spring horde of amorous couples, idle fisherman, and families enjoying their afternoon picnic that had usually haunted the shores of Lake Lonely was absent. It was nearly four in the morning, and over the black water, warm may breeze was lonely & suicidal. It made no difference, whatsoever; nobody could see the spectral longship as it emerged, jumping through the space, trout-like and tall. However, as the beaked prow punched through the surface, for I moment I heard the birds recoil and stop in their early morning song, and felt the wind quiet itself. Then I hurried from the deck, nearly falling over in my haste. In the world of the quick everything resumed; for the flesh world had little sensation for tribulations and agonies of the spirit,

"Mr. Steele, I have no words left to thank you. I am speechless. Just the regulations you had to shirk to get me this far from the official hierarchy harbor… Not to mentions the Spectres…" Steele's offer to sail through the Tempest all the way through to the Lake Lonely, a known tourist destinations that was an hour's brisk walk from Yaddo still made me fuzzy deep inside. Whatever inside meant now when the outside was rotting six feet under the name that was never truly mine.

( _Semantics Syv. Semantics, semantics, semantics …)_

""Don't mention it, Ms. Plath. Demons or legion men could never stop me from aiding the soul in need. Just watch yourself, alright. Whatever made you come running back here in this state is no business to joke about."

Filled to my teeth with gratitude I knew there was little time for exchange of courtesies; I had to find Zoey before she gets herself in more trouble than she was currently in. I ran through the rotting underbrush that had surrounded the lake, knowing that I am about to emerge upon a hiking trail, leading west; that trail should take me through the small woods back to the tarmac road that encircled Saratoga Springs Golf Course, and then across the Adirondack Northway, new four- lane turnpike always buzzing with traffic, right in the west, part of Yaddo. I hoped I could find my way from there to the Gazebo- Yaddo' s west part was a dense forest, ancient, dark and rarely traversed since the days of the pilgrims. I remember getting lost there once in my breathing days. I was riding a bike fortified into my thoughts and daydreams when I found out that I cannot find my way. It was twilight, and everywhere around me, old black oaks stood like grim sentinels, some of them, entwining their knobbed arthritic branches above the narrow trail, blocking the last blood flow of sunlight. The sense of fear and detachment was the most beautiful and yet most frightening feeling in the world, and I felt the maddening urge to go deeper, to completely lose myself in the depths of this magical place. To find me a place where the leaves are dying in the dew of times long gone, and to lie there and die as the next generation of foliage covered me never to be found. Instead, I found my way back to the old marble Victorian, and wrote like a mad girl. I never wrote so well and so free then after taking my bike to these secluded spots deep in the bosom of the forest; it certainly lacked the friendly atmosphere of poetic outing that was Katrina Park, but the creative rush it gave me was of the different kind; me and the inner, raw natural rhythm of poetry were one.

( _One and one and one is three. Me, you and poetry. Forever and ever. You have tried to end it but guess what? Nothing can end despair and loneliness. You might just as well try to tell the seasons to stop changing. Or you might try to end it right now. I have heard Oblivion looks great this time of the year)._

I went around the golf course, encircling its tall, white wooden fence. Even it my deathsight, it didn't look so derelict and old like most of the things I have gazed upon in the Skinlands. Sometimes, it seemed to me that golf courses and shopping malls can never die. Small circle of local wraiths that have haunted it, all of them passionate golfers during their breathing years was probably somewhere inside, perhaps listening to the venerable grocer Freemont as he told then for the millionth time his sad tale of his dead-beat son who sold their grocery store to cover his numbers lottery debt down in Atlantic city. It was good no one was out there to see me, because I was a pitiful sight. My hair was wild, the expression on my face was probably murderous and blank since I could sense the Shadow going stronger; it fed on my fear and guilt and I have been feeling a wagonload of both since Five Point café. There was a gaping wound on my shoulder where the relic bullet had struck me. The pain still cut me sharply with each sudden movement and the ectoplasm stained the left side of my work-blouse and my blue business suit a mean dark red. Seasoned legionnaires always said that bullet wounds are not such a big deal when you are dead; McDouglas had been wounded in his breathing days and several times here during the Mayflower rebellion and he claimed that relic bullets barely sting compared to what he felt when a bootlegger shot him in the knee. Good slumber and bit of burned emotional juice always helped (he sneered and said that he had to drink himself to an early grave to witness a world in which happy thoughts were actually helping) and after they'd heal the wounds left no visible scars upon the corpus, unlike claws of the Spectres and Stygian steel. I had no personal experience with getting shot, but I could feel that the pain in my shoulder was strong and persistent, hardly an agony but still worrying.

Turnpike was surrounded with the kind of fence they use to prevent wildlife from wandering into the highway. I walked right through it and continued to run across the turnpike. The Skinlands automobile drove right through me, and trying not to jump back; after all those years of being dead, letting the car come at you at full speed still felt deeply and intuitively wrong sometimes. There wasn't many cars- the only the couple of early morning drivers rushed on towards New York City, gaze of their headlights sternly cutting through the dissipating darkness.

I crossed to the other side embarking upon small stretch of grass. The blades of grass seemed threateningly sharp around my calves, like thin razors ready to cut right through my stockings. I passed through them, and as the breeze leaned them towards me, their sharp tips sometimes seemed to stab right into my ankle, disappearing inside me. In a moment of joyous insanity I remembered that in the first days of my afterlife I had been wondering why our feet don't fall right through the earth since we are insubstantial and able to pass through solid object. When I asked Cletus about, he just smiled and said that we are used to feel about ourselves as natural part of the ground; unlike the other built or grown, living or unloving, sense of ground underneath us is something that had been there since we could remember ourselves existing, and in a way it was more _real_ to us than anything else. Everything could be an illusion, but place on which we stand must be real instead we would lose all the consciousness about ourselves, and our ego would dissipate like dust in the wind. Some people I have known during my breathing days, interested in Indian philosophy considered that prospect welcoming, but to me it was outright horrifying. Things that _are_ , can feel the ground beneath their foot soles, because to float is to fall.

Eternally. I approached the edge of the woods, with spears of grass poking out of my lower legs. They were every bit as dark and ancient as they were forty years ago. The old, wise trees, crooked with foreboding age and yet dignified and threatening, guarded every step of my, blocking the wind and the sunlight leaving the gloomy forest interior untouched. No one could pass, nothing could come in – the place was isolated from outer world, and only the alien thoughts of the trees and shrubbery could live here. Out there around the park, and main Yaddo building the college people, poets writers and artists could laugh, talk and weave their most intimate abstract thoughts and impulses into words and images, typographic imprint of their spirits adding new stars to the celestial parliament of Gutenberg's Galaxy. Out here thoughts and emotions weaved themselves, pure & organic, they spiderwebbed in the calloused tree branches, creating a firm safety net. I felt the ageless presence unmolested by the talk and walked of the living usher me inside. It was there, whatever it was; the hollows in the sides of the trees were its dark, inquiring eyes, grey, almost fossilized bark grown with ivy and mistletoe was its impenetrable armor, protecting it from being truly comprehended by anyone. My ears, sharpened by death were able to catch every sound. Nervous skitter of small animals and scratching noises of insects making their way through the fallen leaves filled the air clogged with damp aroma of decay. Some of the branches sported long green manes of moss hanging down from them, Fairy hair, green and alive, smelling of forgotten ages, scented by solitude and darkness. An electrifying shudder went through me as I soaked all of it in, the shudder of fear, not the throat clenching panic that made my dark side feel alive but good fear, the kind of eerie feeling that made Mary Shelley write Frankenstein or that made thousands of teenagers feel sexual rush when they watch scary flicks in the suburban drive-ins.

There were voices, faint but audible somewhere below the music of the forest that came from the Skinlands. I stopped dead in my tracks. The forest trail led me to the familiar place. There was a slope to my left, descending at a steep angle. It was grown in shrubbery and small oaks with a few decorative Russian pine trees, their pyramidal treetops slanted at impossible angles. The scent of water lilies told me that a small decorative pond was down there, waiting behind the row of trees. For many a time I used to swim in that pond, its waters shallow but cold and refreshing during summer months. Voices were coming from down there, at least three of them, not trying very hard to be silent. I also heard familiar metal clangor and sigh of soulforged armors. Legionnaires! There was a faint hope that Archie had enlisted some aid in looking for Zoey, and I wanted to get to them, but my newly awakened lizard sense, was telling me it was better to be careful.

( _Maybe you're just being territorial, Syv. What are they doing on your domain anyway? You haven't invited them or asked them to sort your crap out for you, haven't you?)_

Instead of calling for help I sneaked carefully towards the voices, hiding behind the brushes, before walking through them. Soon I came upon the pond. Peeking from behind small pine tree, I noticed a shape on the other shore by the wooden pier. My heart ( _I didn't know you had one anymore."_ It's a figure of speech, you bore! Leave me be now!" _)_ began to race. It was Archie's treasured relic Corvette, left there door askew. There was something wrong; he would never leave his Vette like that. Then the voices came nearer and I retreated deeper into the forest listening. There were at least two of them- male with the strong commanding voice, and another male, seemingly much younger speaking with a strong New York accent.

"He must be somewhere around here, for sure." New Yorker mused, "He would never leave his car like that."

"Never mind him, Mick" the other spoke briskly. "Centurion Edward wants us to find Plath lady and the little bitch. He is around, but he is unarmed. If he resists in any way, he will feed the Oblivion."

"Maybe we should capture them and sell them down in Bronx." Third voice. Slow, with a pronounced drawl that sounded almost mocking. "I know a man that would pay good Oboli for three thralls, no questions asked."

"You can do whatever you wish with him, but Edward wants bitches for questioning. No doubt he'll have them forged into swords. They know too much already and the big man cannot risk them coming back."

I saw them patrolling the banks, legionaries they were, two of them dresses in plate armor, armed with long spears. Third one seemed different. He was tall and almost unnaturally gaunt with long, dirty brown hair framing his elongated face. All of his features were extended into long unnatural grin, as his sharp eyes pierced the trees along the coastline. He didn't' wear any armor but a green jacket, similar to the one worn by commandos. There was this weird symbol on the breast of his jacket, not any legion symbol, but a black tangled line branching into seven smaller lines on its upper part, reminiscent of the seven- headed cobra extended out of the fakir's basket. Instead of a spear he clutched wicked implement, a machete of black Stygian steel. They were coming towards my hiding, place, now less than twenty feet away from me. A claw of horror gripped me as I saw his face. He was grinning, not like a madman, but like a determined killer, stone faced behind the row of displayed teeth. His eyes were sharper than his blade, and I knew he will sense me if he comes to the spitting distance of me. There was no sense in trying to slip away- my Shadow would betray me to him, call him forth gleefully.

My shoulder started bleeding again and I saw his nostrils react to the smell.

"The bitch is here. I know it"

There was a sense of helplessness, paralyzing and cold, but I shook it away. I was in Yaddo after all, and despite almost everyone in Saratoga Springs knowing Yaddo was my haunt, only Cletus and I knew it was my fetter. I brought the passionate sense of belonging I felt for that place into my mind and felt myself pleasantly disappearing. The Machete man came to the pine behind which I had been hiding, but I was no longer there, although I could perfectly see the confusion in his eyes.

In one short moment I became Yaddo.


	8. Beekeeper's daughter

**Beekeeper's daughter**

"Anyone else heard the music by the lake last night?" the girl asked, tucking the strand of hair behind her ear, while hitting the joint. "I thought someone was playing the windpipe or some shit there. Or I was just so stoned. Songs sometimes play in my head when I am."

Easy young laughter & heavy scent of reefer filled the air. I smelled it everywhere, since I was everywhere; I was the Yaddo ground, I was trees and lakes, and paths that had snaked through the Yaddo. I have just awakened from my slumber- the way my consciousness dissipated throughout the Yaddo always made me lose any trace of self awareness. There was that magical sense of oneness- no sounds, no images, no thoughts, just existing as a place, or rather as a symbol of a place, transplanted away from time and space into pure undiluted concept of the Fetter. In the Skinlands Yaddo could be an actual building complex in Saratoga Springs. It could be the community of artists and writers, the symbol of creative work in stimulating environment of reclusive lush forests. But for me it was primarily an anchor to the world of the living and by retreating into it, I existed in the void between worlds, not embodied, but not quite the spirit, I existed in the way my memories of Yaddo existed- fragmented, but strong, present everywhere but located nowhere in particular, just like the marijuana halo that went into the girl's lungs, reminiscent of that reefer hit I took ages ago in the same gazebo. Sandy, a young beatnik girl was the one who had offered it to me, Ted said he was going to bed early, we chatted & read each other poems, and the moonlight went through the trees and seemed green and sublime…

I separated myself from Yaddo, chasing away the flow of memories. My inner clock told me that I had slumbered for at least twelve hours. I looked around, frightened as a rabbit. I could see no trace of the Sharp-eyed man and his squadron. There were half a dozen young boys and girls, smoking wacky- tobbacky and talking in the gazebo, on the other side of the veil, and I turned away to avoid seeing the traces of defeat, sorrow and death on their faces. Seeing those merry young people through the dimmed lens ( _Oh, it's perfectly clear Syv. Your_ _ **other**_ _lens was dimmed. Folks call it wearing the pink glasses)_ of the dead sight was not something I needed in my present state of mind. I could see that my shoulder was fully healed, ectoplasm being as perfect as before, silken fabric of my blue blouse healing itself too.

I walked along the graveled path, and in the small underbrush, flowered with crimson, I found the small soulmetal chest. I could hear its quiet sob as I opened the lid. Seems like the poor soul who had been forged into my chest still kept the semblance of itself, but it had mostly remained silent. Every once in a while, though, it produced a barely audible moan or scream the tortured sound I have begun to connect with the squeak of badly oiled door hinges, just to remain sane. ( _Relatively)_

I took out a vicious dagger forged of Stygian steel. I remembered the day I had bought it from one of the soldiers that returned from the Mayflower rebellion. It had keen, curved blade, vaguely reminiscent of the oriental yataghan or kukri with a series of small ornate notches on its hilt. It was a nasty weapon, even in the hands as untrained as mine. The surface of the metal was gleaming in blood-red venous ripples. The blade had its very own bloodstream as it circulated the cold fire of the Oblivion along its cracked body. Laying in my hand for the first time in two years it seemed more alive to me than my own corpus. Its exterior was crisscrossed with thin pulsating lines, bringing to mind the bark of the living oak or tender pale skin of some aristocratic Victorian lady that spent most of her days indoors. Without further musing I took the dagger and started slowly prowling the grounds, going towards the lake. Having the dagger in my hand hadn't made me feel any safer. Its hilt was unnaturally cold in my hands, while the blade radiated almost tangible heat. I doubted it could be of any use to me- all I could do with it was stab blindly and hope to hit some part of my foe's corpus that wasn't covered in armor. Against a trained legionary this was a defense only marginally better than my lifelong tactics of throwing my hands up in despair when confronted with something I couldn't handle. Still I grasped the dagger firmly, feeling odd comfort in the air of murder that radiated out of it.

( _Speaking of murder, and similar acts, do you ever ask yourself about that car engine? Old and weird, two- stroke engine, like in those post-war Saab cars or those communist German cars. Didn't seem like anything you or Ted or any of your Primrose Hill neighbors would drive. What about it, Syv?)_

The pond was quiet, its surface calm, black oil stain spread across the surface of the world. There were no birds that would chirp in the bushes around the water, no croaking of toads or buzzing of insects. Silence filled me with sense of almost horrifying anticipation; it seemed as if someone had put a sound-proof dome above the like, a translucent bubble that shut out all the natural sounds. Archie's Corvette had still been parked on the bank. Driver's side door was open, jutting out like a stretched out wing of a wounded sparrow. With little hope I rummaged through the things inside the car. In the gloves compartment I found relic butterfly knife and few of old movie tickets that showed me Archie had seen "Citizen Kane" at least three times. I stretched inside the seat and started thinking. The idea of Archie leaving his prized Vette unlocked, together with old movie stubs that obviously had sentimental meaning to him was outright insane. Also, if he had been attacked, he would have grabbed his knife- he was a trained veteran and he wouldn't backed out without a fight. Or he could have simply driven away if odds were against him. Even skilled practitioner of Argos couldn't catch up with a car. Why did he leave exactly? And where was he now?

In the Underworld, one cannot follow footprints or find broken twigs to track the direction of one's movement. But I could always use my imagination to deduce where Archie could have gone. Unfortunately, I have always had surplus of imagination- it helped me come up with worse possible scenarios when anticipating book reviews and Ted's nightly absences from home. The fact that I was almost always right brought little relief.

He must have left in a hurry. Did he saw something that prompted him to leave his car and rush towards it- Was Zoey in some kind of danger? But if she was attacked he would have opened the glove compartment to get his knife. I sighed and my fist on the dashboard. This was frustrating. I was never Sherlock Holmes type. I could sense when people were lying, and I had been quite observant when it came to secret thoughts and shameful passions people had harbored secretly, often hiding them from themselves ( _everyone is a liar Syv. Thing about that car, won't you. They lied. They lied about why were you…)_ but pulp-novel kind of deduction was above me, or below me, take it as you please. I grabbed the steering wheel, relaxed ( _Just take a deep, deep breath, ha-ha)_ and tried to get into Archie's head. He and his car were inseparable, both in his breathing days and now; he also had that stubborn bravado of a young greaser. He was also flighty and hot headed. The sense of imminent danger would make him, as Shakespearian authors would say, fly into a passion. I exited the car and walked around her once more, listening carefully, ready to swing my blade at anyone foolish enough to sneak upon me. The front end of a car was leaned towards the pond, rear wheels resting on the ledge, front ones only a foot from the surface. He parked carelessly- whatever made him leave the car came to him suddenly. I entered again, and looked through the windshield trying to grasp the surrounding, to summon the thing that Archie had seen into my mind's eye. There was an old wooden pier, extended silently into the water. The tree was filled with black wormholes, darkened and rotten with age and humidity. Getting out of the car I walked along it, while taking a glancing note of the dark pond water. The opposite coast was clearly visible from the edge of the pier. It was shrouded in the impenetrable darkness, thick and threatening. I saw the place where I managed to escape the Sharp-eyed men with his hissing soulforged machete and shuddered. Did Archie saw Zoey come up here? If she did what was she doing? Last time I saw her, she walked towards the lake in sort of a dull trance. I looked into the water. Calm. Black as raven's wing. Quiet. Carefully, anticipating the wet, cold kiss of the water that wouldn't come I entered the lake, passing through the water, feeling only slight resistance, much weaker than the one I felt when passing through walls. Never again would I feel drops of water clinging to my skin- immersion felt like being enveloped into a thin silken curtain, wrapped in the transparent cloth that shifted around me as I moved.

I swam through the lake, trying to reach its bottom. There was carpet of rotten leaves down there together with random heaps of discarded rubbish- several empty lotion bottles and couple of snapped off fishing lines littered the bottom. If Archie saw Zoey enter the pond there must have been something that had drawn her there or at least something Cleo wanted her to find. Whatever it was, it wasn't good otherwise he would pause to park better and close the door of his car. It also had to be something that he knew his knife wouldn't help him with. Despite this, I still clutched my dagger firmly and nervously. Still, the bottom of the Yaddo pond was as peaceful as the surface- there were no hidden Nihils, water Nixies or skulking Spectres. I was ready to give up in despair ( _Yes indeed, Sylvia, dear.)_ but then I had noticed something.

There was movement about ten yards away from me, a shimmer of something moving in the water. It had waved, like grass in the breeze. It could me nothing- just some lake weed, or another random piece of litter, discarded shopping bag or an article of clothing, archeological trace of some passion filled love encounter on the side or inside the lake. Charon knows Ted and I had been through both when we were here. But it could be important. As I closed in on it I almost bolted away in dread.

It was the edge of long, tattered dress, torn and bitten through by the tooth of time, but I was sure it had once perfectly fitted the skeleton that was wearing it. Two white spheres of knees protruded out of its ragged edge, calf bones connected loosely by dry tendons, ending in crow's feet of a corpse. One dainty red shoe rested by left foot, faded with time. The weirdest thing was rested upon the skull. It was old beekeepers hat, complete with the protective net, the one I had often wore as I went to check upon the hives that summer I have decided to take beekeeping as a hobby. Under the net there was wooden hilt of a knife stuck firmly in the throat. There was piece of paper enclosed in nylon sheet and pinned to the breast of the corpse. It must have been pinned firmly (probably stuck to the bone, I realized feeling nauseous despite the lack of physical stomach) to stay in place for all those years. I read the fine typewriter print on the paper and immediately froze.

"No." I mouthed wordlessly. I pictured myself as a wineglass, slowly being filled with rage and fear, only a couple of scarlet drops short of overflowing and spilling all over the tablecloth of reality.

" You bitch! You complete bitch! You cannot do that to me!"

The opening lines were enough. It was one of my late poems pinned to the corpse, the one called "Beekeepers daughter":

" A garden of mouthings. Purple, scarlet-speckled, black

The great corollas dilate, peeling back their silks.

Their musk encroaches, circle after circle,

A well of scents almost too dense to breathe in.

Hieratical in your frock coat, maestro of the bees,

You move among the many-breasted hives,

My heart under your foot, sister of a stone.

Trumpet-throats open to the beaks of birds.

The Golden Rain Tree drips its powders down.

In these little boudoirs streaked with orange and red

The anthers nod their heads, potent as kings

To father dynasties. The air is rich.

Here is a queenship no mother can contest -

A fruit that's death to taste: dark flesh, dark parings.

In burrows narrow as a finger, solitary bees

Keep house among the grasses. Kneeling down

I set my eyes to a hole-mouth and meet an eye

Round, green, disconsolate as a tear.

Father, bridegroom, in this Easter egg

Under the coronal of sugar roses

The queen bee marries the winter of your year."

Rage, fear and pure disbelief blended inside me.

( _You wanted to run away from your poems Syv. To run away from the nail- bitten hand that desperately tries to claw its way to the air, like a bee enclouded in the stupefying aroma of sulphorous oxide. There's no more running girl, cause yesterday's come knocking to your door. Rapping, rapping gently tapping Sylvia.)_

It was then that I heard the music.


	9. In the Trenches

Silver Coast shopping mall at Upper Manhattan was a mall like every other. In the States there were probably millions other like it.

During the week it was moderately visited. The shops and services made most of their money on weekends. Every Saturday, the mall was plastic playground full of consumerism-crazy adults passing by, starry- eyed, their eyes glued to the glitter and neon of the shop windows, children laughing playfully or crying desperately, filling the arcade shops and ball pits with sound of their youth. Colorful childhood filled with the celluloid sheen of Disney blockbusters, fresh scent of new plastic toys, electronic intensity of videogame music.

Grown-up childhood was omnipresent too, that childhood that can be lived only once a month without fear of defaulting on your credit cards. Sweet sensual childhood of new H&M rags, maybe a chic- flick or horror gore-fest at the Multiplex, vanilla and pineapple flavored coffee at Starbucks of Balzac. Above it all, the pleasant yet barely noticeable drone of pop music, voices making the backdrop to the festival of capitalist delight…

It had also been the usual tiresome toil for cashiers and salespersons working there. Aching little brats. Air conditioning that's more often than not FUBAR in summer days, forcing everyone to apply insane amounts of deodorant. Coffee brakes spent window- shopping for that suit or skirt you're totally going to buy as soon as you get promoted to foreman or senior sales executive. For them it was also strange sounds in the walls sometimes. Sometimes it was scratching and croaking, sometimes it was the sound of water gurgling its way down the narrow throat of a faulty wall pipe. Sometimes, people would hear voices and naturally assumed that they are coming from the neighboring carried over by way of large duct vents whose iron-grate teeth grinned from some of the walls. As for other sounds they were usually too busy and underpaid to pay them much mind. The building had been ancient. It stood there since old Bull Moose was in the White House, and some weird sounds were nothing to beat your head about when you had customers waiting in line or spilled ice-cream to mop up from the escalator before it got into the machinery and caused all sorts of clusterfuck.

Also, there were things that mall-rats and mall-workers knew nothing about. Like that story about that boy Bruce Wagner, the night guard that was found dead last Christmas Eve. The manager found him hanging above the escalator staircase, tangled in the bunch of Christmas lamps, which were hung from second story ceiling. The coroner judged he had been electrocuted, although there was no trace of any malfunctions on short- circuits; the tiny shining lights still twinkled around his charred corpse, alternating between "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer".

His father was paid the full amount of his life insurance. The death was written off as a freak accident.

One couldn't say that for countless others, that were to numerous and too far in between to be noticed by always circulating employees. Like the case of the late mall manager, Arnold Neusbaum, jovial fifty-something businessman of German roots with a toupe and a taste for female pro-wrestling and tacky neckties. People still sometimes talked about how he went completely insane back in the 1994, and went after his wife and kids with a butcher knife, before setting his home on fire and burning in the process. Or about Martha Wentsworth, nineteen years old Starbucks waitress, fond of milkshakes and kitten photos, who was arrested for throwing gasoline soaked flaming footballs at cars from the 8th Avenue overpass. She offered no explanations for the deadly prank, only saying she wanted to feel the scent of burning flesh. Folks talked about those curiosities telling themselves that similar stories happen from time to time in every other workplace – after all, there had to be some people who were engaged in idle water cooler chat with Ted Bundy too.

There were also things no one spoke about- most of the people who worked regularly at Silver Coast had frequent nightmares. They were often beset with various violent urges. Parents would come home from work seeking for a reason to give their kids some good spanking. Men were beating on their spouses, plagued all day by the insane doubts about their fidelity. And more than one of them had started secretly torturing and killing small animals. No one knew about the scale of those acts, because people were unwilling to share them with anyone, but if someone knew about it, he would have probably though that Silver Coast shopping mall is the most evil place in the New York City.

He would have been wrong. It was the most evil place in America.

On the other side of the veil, unbeknownst to most of the Quick who went around the mall doing their business, the great oozing wound was open in the very flesh of the Shadowlands reality. It was known as the Manhattan Nihil (affectionately named "The Asshole of the Oblivion" by the legionaries) and it spewed putrid, devouring energy of pure Nothingness into the world. The feeling of despair and emptiness, cold, ancient and creeping was strong enough to seep through the very thin barrier between worlds. It was too powerful to be felt on any conscious level – reasonable and emotionally detached minds of the living internalized it and made it unnoticeable, in a way people fail to register sounds with high or low amplitudes. On the level of pure emotions Silver Coast was too low, too negative to be even registered by amygdalas of men. But it still affected them dearly.

Aside from the almost tangible pull of the Oblivion, the Spectres were swarming next to the Nihil, guarding the gate to their bleak world and organizing the army of reinforcements for the invasion of Shadowlands. In the meantime, they found their joy in sadistic torment of the mortals, using the sickening spiritual atmosphere of the Silver Coast and their dark powers, called Thorns to drive them slowly insane. Their cackling, teasing voices permeated the place, sometimes audible even beyond the veil, but mostly real torture for the soldiers of three hierarchy legions who were tasked with containment of the threat. They were garrisoned in many shops, turned into temporary Haunts. In the sixth story bookstore, just between "Cooking" and "Fashion" sections, Luther Dreyne, Regent of Silent Legion, known as Colonel Dreyne in his breathing days, held his war council.

"Nakamura, you did a splendid job, containing those critters to the region around the Nihil. Those protective artifacts supplied by your Pardoners, helped us a great deal. We would be done without them. We still have circle to think about- our perimeter is stretched thin and if they manage to launch another attack between parking lot and the Gardening supplies store, we won't be able to stop the bastards from spilling into the 11th Avenue. And once they do, we are in whole lot of trouble."

The very voice and stature of Regent Dreyne commanded full attention. He had been tall wraith, with square jaw as wide as the blade of an axe. His face was lined with a web of wrinkles straight and deep as if they were carved into ashen complexion of his Corpus. He was dressed in the WWII era marine uniform, complete with his relic Medal of Honor, and his sword hand was reinforced with soulsteel armor. Another Relic, Luger captured at the Battle of The Bulge was stuck in his sword belt alongside wide and sharp bastard sword. The Japanese lady with curious almond-shaped eyes, dressed in scale armor, smiled curtly while listening to his praise. Another man, brash looking, barrel-chested man of short stature and stubby, crooked nose that had probably been broken a couple of times, couldn't wait to speak:

"Regent Dreyne, we should seriously think about retreating to the corner of Florent and 12th. Marshalls Bibbet and Wellington have placed Stygian steel barriers and two entire cohorts are garrisoned in adjoining streets. We should give up this place- frankly, Nihil is to close and we have a logistic nightmare when we talk about supplying here. If a group slips past our guards and ambushes our supply lines, we would have no other option than to retreat anyway and we will lose more people to the oblivion."

"Retreat?", Dreyne thundered. "And live quick to the mercy of the Spectres. They are already reaching beyond the Veil, by Charon! Their Gremlins made bloody Christmas decorations kill that night guard! I won't speak about retreating! "

"We can do poor job of protecting those mortals if we want to uphold Charon's law?", the wide shouldered man crossed his arms defiantly.

"Protecting them means upholding the Charon's law Marshall Kolowsky, don't you forget that. People will start talking and we will have definite proof of paranormal involvement."

"Another haunted place for the kooky tabloids is what we'll have at worst. By retreating we will only make it less haunted." ,Kolowsky said mockingly. "It's not just mortals I am worried about, it's my men too. Spectres are reaching out for their Shadows, corrupting them. I know you Quiets cannot wait to indulge in that same self- destructive nonsense that have brought you here, but we have no wish to feed the Oblivion."

"Marshall, you can bleat all you want about having no chance to defend this place while two squadrons of your man are peacefully camping two blocks away.", Dreyne's eyes were gray ice as he shot his Look towards Kolowsky. Even during his breathing days he was known for his Look. If The Look aimed your way, you knew the discussion is over. You would go and do what you have been ordered to do. "We are staying here and this is final. If you have men who are succumbing to their Shadows, you should rotate them. Send them to the rear and have castigators take care of them. Nakamura, I want full report on how many of those containment fields your engineers can devise. You can have all resources you need, you can even borrow some of my legionaries if you think their training might help you. We need to protect both our troops and the Quick beyond the Veil. I cannot stress that enough."

"Understood." Nakamura brushed bangs from her forehead and left. After her, Kolowsky saluted and left. Dreyne watched them pass through the glass door of the bookstore and lose themselves in the crowd of the quick that crawled outside. He could see Kolowsky explaining something passionately to Nakamura, probably complaining. He felt burning hate for him. He had worked with him for the last five years, after he had taken command of the Lethe warriors of New York. Kolowsky was a Marshall of Grim legion, a dockside vagabond and small time smuggler, killed in a gang war on the turn of the century. He was tasked with keeping an eye on the Nihil since 1984 and since then he did a great job at keeping as far as possible for the damn thing. All these years, Spectres were amassing forces, twisting the very reality with their permeating evil while this man did Charon knows what.

Dreyne hated cowards with burning passion. He was a man who went to one Good War willingly, came back from it an old vet without purpose and had burned to cinders falling drunkenly and stupidly asleep with a cigarette between his fingers. Then he came back as a ghost to fight another Good war, and he finally felt happy again. There was no retirement this time, no old vet's club where nostalgic tales of heroism came with sugary stank of cheap liquor. No despair that made him a drunken, bitter fool ever since he came back from Normandy. In this world the Good war goes on and on until you get swallowed by the darkness that lurks beyond. He looked towards the black, swirling eye of the Nihil and smiled. Nazis were filthy cowards but Spectres were force of tangible evil, bastards he could respect. Bastards which he enjoyed defeating.

" Regent Dreyne!", voice of the young legionary seemed to have come to rouse him from miles away, but he was right there, next to the bespectacled older man who was buying "Moby Dick", " Clerk Sylvia Plath from Saratoga Springs is here to see you."

"From Saratoga?",Dreyne almost hiccupped with surprise. "What in the name of Charon is a civilian from Saratoga doing here."

"She wants to report something. It's outright bizarre…"

"What?"

"She says that there is some huge Nihil under one of the ponds there. Much larger than this one. And there's more…"

"Look at him.," Dreyne grunted. "What are you? Some kind of suspense episodic novel! Tell me what brought that dame here!"

"There is an entire town inside that Nihil, Regent."- said the soldier quickly, fidgeting with the visor of his helmet.


	10. Things to do in Big Apple

**Things to do in Big Apple when you're dead**

"Somebody slick hateful! Regenerate, degenerate…"

"You should have killed them! All of them, you should have strangled Ted, chopped the necks of his little spawns…"

"I won't join my colleague in this verbal mockery of the poor, infirm woman. Such things are far below my upbringing. However I am forced to assume he is right. A mother leaving her helpless innocent children alone with a man of your husband's qualities is not fit for a motherly role? You never watched upon them…You seem to have forgotten them."

"Mad woman! Insane bitch! Harlon, disguasting hey, come on, jump here it's patty, insolent whore! Bad Mother! Bitchbitchbitchbitchbitchbitchbitchbitch…."

"Remember it! Remember it or there is no peace for you…No peace forrrr yoooouuuu…"

"Suicidal passion strips those madmen of all the compassion and makes them devoid of decency and humanity. Thus they degenerate to the level of common beasts…"

Voices of the Spectres were everywhere. In the beginning they seemed to surround me, then they started to blend with my thoughts, their words and images they inosculating, perfectly translating and mixing into the bitter soup of naggingly dark emotions. There were voices of my mother, voices of the old psychiatrist so fond of electroconvulsive therapy, their broken syntax echoing every wroth, mean and condescending voice of rage, every harsh rebuke or hurtful word. In the end, as I walked through the hallways of shopping mall, escorted by two sullen soldiers, their armors as worn out as my soul, I couldn't really tell if this cacophony of madness is coming from the Nihil or from within me. So I just walked, repeating in my mind everything I am going to tell Dreyne and trying to concentrate on the lyrics of the pop song that blasted through the shopping mall's audio system.

In some happier time, blocking it would be easy, but all the things that had happened in the past couple of days had left me drained like an eaten husk of a fly in the spider-web. When it rains in pours dear Sylvia, and when it pours it's a damn flood, and when it's flooded every branch that you grab is covered with thorns. In other words, by Charon, it was just my shitty luck. And the Quick were milling all over the mall, hurried and blissful devoid of any meaningful deep emotion I could harvest, my escorting guards ushering me towards the escalator.

There was huge billboard over it, eaten away by rust, its shy blink a pale reflection of the beautiful neon glow people beyond the Veil would perceive if they weren't in too much of a hurry to buy things. It had said that your closet will be perfectly organized if you buy it at IKEA. I though organized closets were boring. And buying a closet and organizing one seemed like two differently mundane and tiresome tasks. I let out a sigh of exhaustion. No one noticed.

Since I was ( _Typically)_ let down by the living I turned to the dead. Men in my entourage were both decked in full plate armours. One of the soldiers slowed down to adjust his helmet, nervously. He was the one I told about the Nihil, when I arrived and he glanced my way every now and then, too shy to ask me more, but still eager and curious. I was on the verge of starting the conversation, when the other one, turned towards me, his heavy, gauntleted hand pointing at one of the numerous glass windowed cubicles

"Regent Dreyne is inside this bookstore. On his orders, we shall stay outside. If you got any weapons hand them over."

Reluctantly, I parted with my dagger and with Archie's switchblade. One of the rare bright spots in the eternal gothic darkness of horseshit was the fact that I have managed to escape Yaddo without having to use any of those.

After I found the corpse with one of my poems teasingly pinned to the breast of the poor creature, there was music that was hard to resist. Sweet sound of some unknown wind instrument had overflowed my soul with the multitude of ideas and concepts. It was as if starry sky, parliament of owls rising into the night sky, the river of blood flowing into canyons between the bathroom tiles, filling them up with sparkly scarlet, everything real, everything that can truly be imagined, felt, perceived or conceptualized are elements of the same mathematical sequence, string of pure thought at the same time perfectly mysterious and perfectly clear. I stood marveling, awed by the brilliance of the reality, every idea a corner of the quilt so multi-colored and multilayered that all of the colors and all of the layers have managed to interweave into one urlayer/urcolor. Then, there was a name in my mind

( _Zoey)_

that instantly made me stop my daydream session and start seeing.

Things I saw snapped me out of it faster than the starting pistol on the beginning of the marathon.

I was staring at a Nihil, its edges sudden and jagged as the edge of the torn paper. Inside it was a city, the huge magical metropolis floating in the nothingness of the Oblivion. There were weird buildings hanging suspended under impossible non-Euclidian angles, its towering rooftops decorated with alien patterns, their swirls and hieroglyphics making my head spin as I tried to delve into the intricacies...There were barrowfires burning inside it, and somewhere, buried deep beneath the music there was laughter of children, oddly familiar and yet alien like a voice of a drunken friend heard over a telephone line from miles away.

It was then that I have decided to run, stuck between the wraiths who were aiming to capture me and turn me into the decorative sword and the crazy wrong reality of the space that simply is not.

I reached Archie's car. In my memories I tried to recall the feeling of affection he had when he spoke of his Vette, and then trying to emphasize with it, caressing the wooden dashboard and the fine leather padding of the steering wheel. This form of emotional working had exhausted me to no end and left me devoid of any pathos. However it felt good – since those ruffians shot Cletus there was never a second that I didn't feel like a tautly stretched string, crucified between despair, worry, anger and fear. My Psyche existed between those emotions, my thoughts crawling slowly around them as if they were trying to sneak through the dark room full of sharp-edged furniture ( _I bet IKEA has no sharp edges, Syv)._ When the engine started it's familiar purr-purr I was empty and apathetic and that feeling of detachment continued as I raced the car through the trees and through the fence, coming up on the turnpike and than driving all the way to New York. As I left the Yaddo it occurred to me that I have heard some kind of commotion, but I was to weary to turn around and go checking. Even if those guys are better Argonauts then Steele (and deep down I suspected they were, or that they at least knew some temporal shortcut through the Tempest; there was no other explanation for the short amount of time in which they have managed to coordinate their actions in Yaddo and Stygia) I was simply too fast for them while driving and besides, they couldn't possibly know where I was going. They knew about Yaddo being my haunt; it was probable that Cleo knew that too, but the New York was simply too large for them to track me. With the recent war and everything its Shadowlands reflections also became insanely crowded and it became excellent place to lose myself in. Also, there was one more thing you could do in Big Apple when you're dead other than fighting a war – you could deal with Guilds. And according to Cletus Cleo was respected figure in old Stygia before the Breaking of the Guilds. I believed Cletus- in my thirty five years of death I have never heard any information, any advice of him that would later be proven wrong or even partially fallacious.

So I hunched before the steering wheel, that was a bit too wide for my frame (as were most steering wheels in those old, masculine cars) and I tried to remember some of the history Cletus had relayed to me before.

Guilds were the important element of the Underworld society since their main job was teaching of the Arcanoi- mystical wraith powers like Argos and Castigation. Eventually, at some time in the Middle Ages (Even in my Middle school days, I had been complete idiot when it came to dates, years and places of historical events and I've carried that quality proudly,( _Persistance is the key, Sylvia dear._ It is indeed, thank you very much) to my grave and beyond) the Guilds became too powerful so they devised a charter and tried to usurp the power from Charon himself. Charon hadn't taken their little coup too kindly- he had most of the Guild high-masters soulforged into the great Stygian Arc of Triumph to celebrate his victory and had outright banned their work. Influential ones like Gremlins (who knew how to run the forges) and Castigators were later allowed their practice but they were far from former independence, becoming simple servants of the Hierarchy's legions.

Of course, other Guilds, even those most notorious like the Poltergeists and the Proctors continued to operate illegally- the beckoning siren call of power and fortune was greater than the threat of being punished by thralldom or banishment. After all, many guild members have become very rich over the centuries, and the eternally underpaid ( _You always make me giggle. How do you do it, Sylvia dear?_ By being my charming, awesome self. And what makes _you_ so droll and tiresome, Shadow dear? _)_ ranks of the Hierarchy were well accustomed to look the other way when presented with fistful of Oboli. The center of illicit Guild activity was New York City, with plenty of dead who needed every sort of occult service imaginable and with plenty of legionaries too taken with the war against the abominations that crawled out of the Nihil to mind the occasional violation of the Charon's law.

And right there, next to the Nihil was Regent Dreyne, man of vision and ambition. Old school military type, one of the many who won battles against Nazi tanks only to wave the white flag before his personal demons. Now he stood before me stern and sullen, his glance sometimes fleeing towards the Nihil, dark hate and toxic green yearning etched in the very color of his pupils. I told him my story, beginning with that moment when I met Zoey for the first time, alive and merry, in her green dress while I was getting ready for my usual hours of drudgery at the recruiting center of the Saratoga Springs Silent Legion cohort. In one strange moment it seemed to me that my spirit is somewhere in a dark cheap cinema, looking at the pretty blonde in casual business suit I wouldn't be seen dead wearing, telling this insane story to the impassionate madman in patchwork armor, with a Medal of honor pinned to his chest, Nazi pistol at his waist. I could almost smell the popcorn I could almost hear suppressed excitement of necking youngsters. I had a horrifying sense that the movie reel is going to snap, that in one brief moment there will be nothing but darkness and the square of light pockmarked with those white spots where our reality used to be. And that fear would clench my heart if it was still beating; as it is it only grasped the innards of my corpus and it felt as if I was a detached marionette, with strings fixed upon two tourniquets that are slowly being reeled me in.

"Is that all, Miss Plath?" Dreyne spoke slowly and firmly, like he was cutting sentences with a long knife. "This story of yours is hard to believe. But again I can spot a liar, and let me tell you, you don't look like one." The string fixed to the top of my head made me nod. Reluctantly. It didn't hurt at all. "We had no news about Anacreont Cletus being assassinated. If what you are telling me is true, then we will soon have a real struggle for power within our ranks. And that is something that is best avoided in the present situation." His head slowly moved. Left to right

One Nihil was bad. The other one, to some kind of Tempest Town is worse. If that Cleo of yours is a Spectre, who works together with forces of Manhattan Nihil, we could find ourselves surrounded. Again it might be a diversion. A sabotage. You claim those people were wearing legion armor and were looking for you?"

"I hadn't been able to see any sigils but they seemed like legionaries. In plate armor, with soulforged spears. Hadn't seen many outlaws or Heretics dressed like that, have you, Regent?"

"Have you considered that you might be a suspect, Miss Plath. The facts seem quite dire. After all, you are the last person who had seen Anacreont Cletus save the barkeep, who is probably also being Harrowed as we speak, and the assassins. If there is sanctioned order for you to be brought to justice I would have to comply."

Time slowed. A girl, expression of intense boredom stretched across her face walked straight through Dreyne and picked the book from one of the shelves. She carried "100 best Cajun dishes" right through me and her act seemed downright invasive.

"Don't worry about that, Regent. I would never compromise you in the way to force you to harbor a fugitive from Charon's justice. I won't stay in this area for long anyway. I just came to assure you of my innocence. There are however two favors I have to ask of you. First is that you don't mention to anyone the fact that I had been here. I will leave soon and I will leave no trace of my presence here. Transferring the legionaries that have spoken to me would also be quite helpful. That way they cannot talk to anyone here about our conversation and put you into jeopardy."

When I began asking him not to betray me he tried giving me that Look of his. I was not amused. It is really funny when you think of it; people who would go through fire and buzzing steel shrapnels would cower before the piercing gaze of the authority. He could stare me down as long as he wanted too- I felt as blank as a plank.

"I fear I couldn't comply with that request the risk is too great…"

"The gain is also great, Regent." I replied coldly. "I will be straight to the point. Anacreont Cletus is an old wrath. He has existed here for millennia. It is doubtful if he could make it through another Harrowing. The matter of succession will be asked. And you are viewed as a hero by many."

"I couldn't be a logical successor. The Overlords…"

"The Overlords are not very present in the life of the Necropolis recently. You are. When I talk to the dead I know - and I know a great deal of them, since we Castigators are always of great help- your name will be familiar to them. And many of them owe me quite a few favors. I was the one who kept their Shadows at bay. And that covers more than the members of the Silent Legion. I have few contacts with wraiths of Iron Legion. The Geezers have the numbers, and they love their aftelife safe and sound. If I mention your name in enough places the Overlords will risk real mutiny if they don't promote you. At least until Anacreont Cletus returns from his tribulations in the Oblivion." For a brief moment, the stiff coldness of my voice managed to surprise even myself.- "If he returns. You will have this war at your disposal. All of the cohorts responding directly to you. No more buraucratic nonsense, no more negotiations. Entire Silent Legion of the New York Necropolis. Every sword."

His eyes looked startled. Then, in a blink of an eye he returned his composure. He wasn't looking at me anymore. He peered towards the great Nihil with hungry, passionate eyes. When he spoke his voice didn't boom or cut anymore. It was barely a whisper:

"It's done deal. I'll keep my mouth shout. What is the second favor you ask of me."

"Tell me the name of someone who is connected with Guilds. Possibly an Oracle. There must be at least one of them in the Big Apple."


	11. Ship of the dead

**Ship of the Dead**

I stood on the lonesome deck of the spirit-ship and down from the railing, I gazed at the black water of Long Island Sound. The estuary cradled the waste of the city in its motherly water arms, and the old hull of PS General Slocum was brimming with the city's ghost. Some of them were victims of that very ship, drowned and burned man and woman whose existence was eternally tied to the brazen bosom of its spectral image. Some of them were, just like me, bound for Hart Island which was ironically, one of the places people rarely ever visited in the New Apple. You had Ellis Island of my father's dreamy eyes as he gazed upon the tall concrete towers of Brooklyn, Lady Liberty greeting him from his right, you had City Island of the rich, care-free America, with its yachting clubs, seafood restaurants and pleasant resorts and you had Fisher's Island, the pastoral retreat of forest visited by sentimentalists and hurricanes alike.

And then you had Hart Island, home to captured Confederate soldiers, ferried far from the mellow rural boredom southern fields to be starved and whipped by cold Atlantic winds. Then it became New York's largest potter's field, where dead without home or loved ones or even their name got buried, putrid corpses fished out of the bay after shipwrecks and lifewrecks, beggars and homeless clutched by cold merciless claws of pneumonia, their hungry husks reeking of gin and despair dragged from the city streets. People found murdered in isolated forests and parks, their lives and sorry deaths, too insignificant for anyone to care. Bones found on Staten Island landfills, ferried here and laid in potter's ground no questions asked, their faces finally disappearing, first from their viscerocranium, then from the newspaper reports advocating missing persons that are never going to be found. When yellow fever started murdering, the dying was brought here together with the women deemed insane by their husbands and male relatives. In its long and sorrowful history it was the prison for delinquent boys, female lunatic asylum and in the end the place where Uncle Sam conveniently decided to put their nuclear missiles. Today, there were no living people on the island- the old Pavilion hospital was a crumbling haunted shell, missile silos rusty husks of metal poking out from the desolate woods. No living people, but more than couple of restless dead made the island their haunt. As Dreyne told me, those wraiths were numerous and they were not on friendly terms with New York Necropolis Hierarchy. Several of the influential ones demanded that they become a separate Necropolis, accountable only to Stygia, and many more rejected the Charon's law altogether. That came as no surprise to me- they were outcasts, in most cases people rejected and wronged by society in their breathing days ( _Really,Syv? Your little commie heart is bleeding? Don't let the big fishes hear you on this one. They are after all, renegades and heretics in the eyes of Charon. You might end up in front of our own, undead version of McCarthy's Committee)_ contemptuous of any form of organized government. What mattered to me is that Hart Island, with its pauper's graveyard, old female mental institution and old disease ward was the hub of Guild activity. So I found myself on the deck of the ill fated PS General Slocum.

It milled with ghosts, some of them hunched under the worries that made them go to that haunted place, contemplating their troubles, trying to subdue their shadows in those strained conversations that took place behind their eyes. Others chatting with each other cheerfully, talking of war, and of various things they were passionate about, carefully trying to discern if someone was listening to them. And there of course, were those who sank with the old steamer or scorched in the searing metal fire of its bowels. Their passions were keeping the engines of the old steamer running. Whether they hated the thing that caused their painful deaths, or have over time cultivated a kind of bizarre fondness for their iron deathbed was beyond my knowledge; I could see them clearly, focused upon the ship, their bloated or charred faces expressionless, tatters of their clothing always floating although there was no wind present, the rain that accompanied or travels passing through their corpora. Whatever those emotions were, they burned stronger than gasoline & chaffed out of the ship's chimney in brisk colorful sparks, strong as pain but much more evanescent than happiness. We cut through the silence of the estuary, and our memories, like always failed to sink to the calm bottom of its waters.

The Captain didn't have a grain of Steele's subdued, grim warmth. He was a serious, portly man in brass buttoned coat, his face grotesquely contorted in the grimace of horror caused by drowning ( _Drown in gas, die happy Syv)._ He counted my Oboli without any questions, haggled for a while about taking the car too. Then he counted more Oboli, and made two of his thralls use the ship's crane to transport Archie's Corvette inside the ship's storage compartment to the great amusement of the passengers. I was annoyed by the delay, and I paced back and forth along the Pelham Bay's public beach that served as a boarding point, while the pair clumsily secured Archie's relic and started lifting it upwards. Still, Archie would have never forgiven me if I left his beloved Vette in this dreary desolation of northern Bronx.

Pondering my situation brought me more displeasure. Although I was finally able to maintain reasonable distance from people who actively tried to force me to spend the rest of eternity as thinking, feeling blade there was nothing else to look forward to. The Zoey was gone, Archie too, Yaddo was still besieged by population of my nightmares, minus my dear mother. I was alone with no one left to trust, still wondering how in the Hades I managed to leave the Silver Coast Mall without Dreyne throwing me into irons. Still I had no idea who Cleo actually was, and the Dreyne only pointed me in the direction of Hart Island. How was I to find a Guild member there was beyond me. Eight years ago there the Silent Legion did a survey of the spirit population on the Hart Island that I happened to be a part of. It approximated that the island held about eight hundred souls, a commendable number for a place that was never actually inhabited by the Quick. Most of them, about six hundred, had stated the old graveyard as their haunt. The number was probably a lot larger since then- although people were no longer buried on the potter's fields there, the lack of Legion had made Hart Island perfect hideout for the groups that were unfriendly towards Hierarchy.

"Excuse me Miss, I don't want to intrude in any way, "the voice spoke behind my back, startling me from my thoughts "but I had a liberty of noticing that you have the gift of Fatalism. Are you going to the Madhouse Seeress? If so, could you relay my question to Her. I had a mind to ask her myself but, unfortunately I seem to be sort of persona non grata among the Oracles. There have been certain monetary concerns I have still not managed to address. Of course, I would be more than willing to pay you if you insist."

He was small, older man, his salt and pepper hair thick but neatly combed, his beard trimmed. He stood right behind me, long effeminate fingers nervously playing with stiff brim of a Homburg hat. His clothing revealed one of these men who could care little about their dress and still look stylish- a dull gray tweed coat, simple shirt, paired with black bowtie. He had no visible weapons, and seemed generally harmless but I was still on my guard. There definitely is such a thing as seeing too much of the dark side of people to be careless.

"I haven't a clue in Hell about anything you just said, Sir." I recoiled, one of my hands instinctively dropping down to my blouse pocked. I hadn't reached for my knife yet, but I was ready to grasp it. "Even if I had a gift of Fatalism, how would you know it? And who is the Madhouse Seeress?"

"I am sorry, I must have been mistaken." He started back, his eyes dropping like dimes. "I just thought… I am sorry to have frightened you or disturbed you, Miss, it was really rude to intrude upon you in such way. I'll leave you now"

"No." He seemed honest in his bewildered surprise and I felt mellowing down. Still my right hand didn't wander to far from my pocket. "I am sorry myself. I would gladly rely your message but I sincerely don't know who that Madhouse Seeress is. If I might say it sounds quite obscure. And I am still interested in why did you assume I had the gift of Fatalism. Care to elaborate?"

"You…You seriously don't know that…" he started stammering, for a moment looking like a sixty something schoolboy squirming before teacher's eyes while being asked to repeat a lesson he didn't learn. "I am one of the Oracles myself, not that skilled of course, I had to abandon my studies before I grasped finer points of divination, but I can still recognize those with a gift. It's one of the first things they teach you, but it's also sort of an intuition. There is a similarity, sympathy we call it…The like responds to like, and the fate likes it this way. But maybe my hunch was wrong." He sighed." If you don't know that…"

"You weren't mistaken. I have some gift. I discovered it just recently. Couple of days ago, actually. It's like I can see paths that meander between things that are supposed to happen, although I don't know what those things are. Kind of like being in a dark labyrinth, not being able to see colors or textures of the walls but knowing perfectly they are there."

"Kismet." He nodded. "Yes that is the sign, the earliest sign. It just appears once, some get it the moment after their reaping, others can exist here for hundreds of years without any knack, and they just get it once. No one knows why. The Fate works in mysterious ways, and only Lady of Fate might know what shape the Continuous Weave will take in the end."

The mention of the most secretive Deathlord did little to put me at ease. What are you getting yourself into again, Syv? But once the barrel starts rolling with you stuck inside it, there's no point thinking about how you got there. You just keep rolling down and you brace yourself in case the slope ends in some sharp rocks.

"I went to the Hart Island to look for an Oracle too." I continued, asking myself constantly if he's reading my mind. That thought played inside my head like a broken gramophone record and I could do nothing about it. I could only give myself a strong, purely spiritual migraine. And one would think those kind of aches will end in death, who would have guessed it? How much more can this seemingly ordinary little old man know about me? "Maybe you can aid me. I have some questions I would like answered. About Guilds and about a certain person."

"I cannot help you, Miss. Like I said, I was only shortly associated with the Oracles, and I am still unfortunately, indebted to them. I don't know much Fatalism, only the most rudimentary knowledge stayed within my grasp. But if you are looking for an Oracle, look for Madhouse Seeress. Every poor dead soul in the Pavilion knows about her and will be more than happy to recommend her. She is the best Oracle in the New York."

"Is she safe?"

"Yes. Yes she is. Absolutely. She has no association with Heretics, and is generally good natured. Just make sure you don't owe her any Oboli. She takes her services very seriously. She is also very old and very skilled and she will help you with any questions you might have."

"Thank you. I'll be glad to relay your question to her. What is it? No you don't have to pay me, you helped me enough." He began digging through the pockets of his tweed coat, feeling for coins, I guess. I really didn't want to take his money for such an easy favor considering he was in debt. Wanted him to keep his hands where I can see them, too. Children, if we learned anything in the last couple of days; it is that one can never get too paranoid.

"I want to know if I'll ever find Sarah here. That's what I wanted to know for a damned long time, but never dared ask. My name is Isaac Smith, by the way, and she is Sarah Emma Smith. My daughter." There was a figment of choked pain in his voice, mixed with something else. Pride? Was he proud of the fact that he had finally found enough courage to face the fact that his dead daughter might forever be lost for this afterlife just like many others that never appeared here, on the insanity washed shores of Lethe? I certainly would be.

 _Of course you would. You evaded some inconvenient truths for the long time and you still keep dodgin' them, don't you?_

I nodded: "I am certainly going to ask that. Where can I find you in order to tell you the answer?"

"I'm haunting an old house in Greenwich Village. Christopher Street, eleven, just above some beauty parlor whose name I cannot recall now." He seemed very old." I have some personal matters to attend to at Hart Island. I'll be back ashore tonight and then I will wait for you with an answer, so come whenever you're at liberty to do so? I am still able to pay you if you have changed your mind about it."

"That won't be necessary." I replied. "I'll find you there. tonight." I knew very well that my time was running out, but all of a sudden I felt very sorry for that old man. He seemed somehow lost, nervous and fragile, and I was certain his child was his Fetter, a dear connection he had lost after she died. There were probably things left unsaid, fatherly lessons left unfinished, love that was and never will be shared. And he kept around, hoping that she will be still, on some level aware of his presence, that it will give her some kind of strength. And then she died chapters and chapters of their story still unwritten. At that point I became sure that his story about being in some kind of a debt was a lie, that he went to Hart Island to ask for her fate himself, but lost his courage, and his Kismet drew him towards me, like we are often as by some unknown mesmeric force drawn towards the things that will either be our greatest inspiration or our greatest curse. And quite often it turns out that those things we happen to intuitively search destroy us in the end, the cliché of butterflies and gaslights be cursed a million times.

And as the little old man walked away, I stood on the lonesome deck of the spirit-ship, gazing at the black water of the Long Island Sound my pains only my own, my worries unsinkable in the depths of the endless sea.


	12. The Madhouse Seeress

**The Madhouse Seeress**

The soil of the Hart Island potter's field is ashen with memories. The gray earth seem to crumble beneath the soles of my shoes, seemingly pliant under my feet, although I am aware deeply inside that there will be no trace of me. I'm never going to leave footprints again- there shall be no imprint of mine on the body of the living breathing earth, no echoing trail of letters on the pulpy whiteness of the paper, no fingerprints on the smooth edge of the porcelain or in the tender crease of somebody's palm.

Through the crisscrossed nakedness of the advancing woodlands Pavilion asylum waited, its old marble walls seemingly alive with the green death moss that grew upon them. It was easy to forget that the devouring green monster that had clutched the walls in its eternal embrace, that symbol of eternal decay was invisible in the world of the Quick, for no Quick were around and the world of the living seemed nonexistent here where the Veil seemed thinner than the morning mist. World of earthly joys and earthly horrors, world where Scarlett O' Hara roses bloomed in early June its scarlet faces reflecting the twilights of insane and hopelessly romantic. A place of summer heat and blue skies, where dogs and newborn children still exist and the things which can hurt your soul stay intangible and out of reach. World where music never means death and death is a welcomed repose, endless sleep devoid of dreams; sweet refuge from the razor sharp touch of morning's featureless palm.

Wasn't that world a distant dream, a place of myth and fable, a childhood memory woven from endless summers and kite's wavering flight?

After stashing Archie's car in the middle of the forest that seemed reclusive and unpopulated by the dead population of Hart Island I went towards the Pavilion asylum, across the barren field that used to be New York's greatest pauper's bone orchard.

The graves, invisible in Skinlands, still gaped open like wounds in the sickly grey earth's flesh. As I walked between them I paid no mind to the faces of wraiths that housed that valley, most of them still clinging to some old rotten bone their last material memento of the life. Their faces wanted no conversation, no greeting. Their eyes diverted themselves with the unerring swiftness of the well prepared gesture. There were soldiers of Confederacy, grey tatters of their uniforms clinging to their scarecrow corpora, clutching their useless relic muskets with bony crow-fingers. There were homeless ones, derelicts, drowned sailors and victims of murder with no name, all of them standing there, aimless their gazes tracing the fine gray dust that covered everything. In their minds they drew symbols in the ash; arcane drawings that questioned their destinies.

Don't ask me how I knew it. I simply did, because every passion touches you, when you are nothing but a emanation of your living sorrow, dressed in a mirage of Legion's business uniform, but actually for the first time bared before your Peeping Tom- heart.

The Pavilion madhouse stood before me, and I could see stiff masculine cold emanating from its walls. The wall, grey and ruinous, but still painfully hard in its claustrophobic reality circled the building and its adjoining courtyard, overgrown in faded foliage. Rusty brown plaque on the wall's broad chest honored the good enlightened men who have commissioned the asylum; and two of them, dressed in their best turn of the century cloaks stood before it harvesting pleasure from the crumbs of this pitiful remembrance. For a moment there seemed to be music; a light melody of the flute or bagpipes filling the old graveyard and everyone seemed to listen for a while; even the cold wind blowing strait from the Tempest's freezing gullet stop listening to the cheerful melody. The two men woke from their meditation of self-indulgence their hollow eyes rendered dreamy with sudden eerie melody. I stopped, my body thrust halfway through the heavy gate of the asylum's courtyard. I forgot myself momentarily ( _Remember Syv, let me give you the edge. You head hurt and the car was going down the driveway, yes Sylvia it's tattoo slowly tattooed itself into deeper parts of your brain like a lesion, a slow tumor of awareness…)_ , the music making me lift my thin porcelain hands with chewed up fingernails in front of my eyes. Lie of music was cut short by the moan that came from within the old red bricked building. Everything went silent, only thing that I felt was the sobering thorn of compassion causing jitters all over my body, overflowing me with a fresh and rarely felt joy of my own emotional realness. Walking into the courtyard I noticed that the pale vegetation was coated with a fine film of the same gray dust that seemed to be everywhere on the island. Leaves and blades of grass seemed to be choking under the grave dust, its tender touch returning everything to one true beginning. She stood on the other side of the arched gate, behind the old, almost crumpled admissions desk. Her wild hair covered the torn nightgown, her nervous fingers toying with the ivory comb. It was impossible to tell her age; she was somewhere in the realm of the angels and the insane, sexless and ageless in her hospital terrycloth frailty.

"Have you heard the song, lady?" she asked me, doll-eyes skittering wildly between me and the comb. "He played for you. He blew gently because he wanted to take you with him."

I regained my composure. I didn't wanted no mention of the music. I was paranoid enough as I was and I came here to get some information. I didn't wanted this conversation to head towards the cuckoo-zone too soon.

( _Isn't it a bit hypocritical of you after they refused to listen to you, thinking you were crazy. Although you knew everything about it, girl)_

I am sorry, I didn't seem to hear a thing." my voice grasped that perfectly calm how-can-I-help-you-could-you-please-help-me tone. "I came here to see the Seeress. Is she here?" A gentle nod, her eyes floating side to side as if reading my words materialized in the thin air before me. "Can I speak to her?"

There was no audible answer but her face focused and her finger, thin and trembling pointed upward. Another moan was heard.

"Are those stairs to the left leading to the Seeress?" Courtly nod again. "Thank you very much! If you need someone to take care of your inner voice, I can do that. No charge will be necessary, just look me up sometimes, will you?" No answer whatsoever. Fingers gently stroking the ivory teeth of the comb. I hurried along the stairway, and found myself in the narrow, dark hallway. I traced it carefully. On both sides of me, cells of the asylum inmates gazed at me. In some of them were the poor women, many of them still tormented by the very same demons that had landed them here in their breathing days, still pressed and harrowed by the isolation and silence that had descended upon their minds when society took their words away from them and turned them into the army of nightgown Ophelias, disheveled sentinels guarding that dusky realm populated by creatures of Almighty Reason's nightmares. Now dead patrol was lost in their kingdom of screaming delirium and blank-eyed catatonia, the last platoon of hearts that still clung to the bloody walls despite owl's talons of despair carrying them away. Hallway went on and on, endless and dreamless, rasping sharp cough of those withered by consumption mixing with the moans of those dying, depressed and insane. On its end a room yawned, littered with thousands of leather shoes. Plaster was scraped of the walls. Three wraiths were inside, and I needn't ask twice, Kismet be damned which of them was the fabled Madhouse Seeress.

She sat on the throne made of discarded shoes, made by troubled, empty eyed inmates and then forgotten. I could not say which of them were the abandoned relics, destroyed and then resurrected here as the objects that represented somebody's last anchor to the slimy bottom of late Victorian sanity and which of them were intangible material shoes, still whole in the Skinlands. I realized it was impossible because Veil here was virtually nonexistent- if a mortal stood here, he or she could hear echoes of our voices, could feel the grey winter of death freezing his nerves like pipelines froze in London winters.

Her frame was heavyset, eyelids drooping, lips full and stretched into eternal grin. It was not grin of insanity, but of foreboding wisdom that strikes one with raving madness and sharp sanity at the same hour. Hear white hair was raised and stiff fin de siècle bun, and reclining there, naked columns of calves stretching underneath her hospital gown, she looked like a demented caricature of some old Victoria Regina's portrait. There were two other woman in the room and by the expression of bare admiration and servility on their faces I could tell there are her thralls. Soul slaves were usually privilege of the Stygian aristocracy and how did she got them I didn't know, but I remembered my conversation with the old gentleman aboard "General Slocum" who warned me that being indebted to the Seeress was a bad idea.

"You came." The pudgy flesh around her mouth shivered as she spoke. "Before you ask I must hear the screams of your money. One Obolus will grant you three answers. Half of one will grant you one. Pay and ask, Miss Plath."

I stifled my impulse to recoil in surprise at the sudden mention of my name. It was probably a parlor trick, smoke and mirrors employed by Oracles to inspire awe. I opened my small pouch and drew one Obolus out:

"I have only two questions Seeress."

She nodded lazily, reminiscent of a huge spoiled cat waiting for her meal. There was something deeply repulsive in that nod; as if she thought that she could bend entire world to her will if she wanted but the world isn't worthy of her time. One of the thralls, frightened blonde girl no older than sixteen crossed the room on worried feet and took the coin from me. My smile of compassion went seemingly unnoticed by this poor soul. The Seeress brought the coin to her ear. Behind her widening grin, there were fanglike teeth, wolfishly white in their clear cruelty. I could smell the stench of her domineering Shadow through those teeth

"Three you paid and three you're gonna get." A slight southern drawl was coiled in her voice and I asked myself, with curious disgust who was that slave-driving fortune-telling matron in her breathing days? Was she some rich tobacco Queen from Georgia brought to insanity by the destruction of '65? Did she remember fondly, as she withered here, the bright antebellum summers, when she sat parasol in hand on the porch of her mansion, listening to the sharp cry of the overseer whip and turning her teacup over to read her future? I struggled to bury my hatred for her deep, to strangle it before it distorted lines of my mien, but if she had sensed it, she didn't react. She probably didn't care much; the bullwhip was hers to crack.

"I want to know where is the spirit of Sarah Emma Smith, daughter of Isaac Smith, who currently haunts Christopher Street eleven in Greenwich Village."

"Tell him that he is going to find her daughter when she finds out why is she here. He should keep in mind, however, ", she slowly brought each of her words forth as if she was measuring them, looking them from every side and scaling them ( _A pound of flesh; no more nor less)_ before actually articulating them. " that she no wish of being found. She si engrossed in mystery of her own demise."

"Alright. I have one more question. Who is Cleo? She was big in Stygia in the times before Charon disbanded the Guilds. What can you tell me about her."

"She is a fool!", the large woman thundered, echo of her voice making me shudder in spite of my efforts. Mostly because I saw black spittle of her Shadow flying from her fat lips and realized that it was her inner darkness that she used to draw upon her prophecies. I remember Mr. Smith calling her generally "good natured" and wondered if he was sorely misguided or had he met the Seeress before her Shadow grasped control of her. " She names herself the Voice of hope in her pitiful ignorance but she doesn't know that despair has its own knights- an old rhetoricus, a young cavalier, and a boy with seven headed snake. Her madness sires children that are going to be her own undoing, for Chronos himself couldn't eat all of his spawn." She calmed down, her face again the very picture of lazy satisfaction. "There is your answer, miss Plath. I must say that you have managed to surprise. You didn't ask the question everyone with your sign asks of me. But you still have one more."

"Thank you for your answer." I hated myself for letting my voice shudder & become low and scared. I backed into the wall and started passing through.

 _(A frightened girl shutting herself into her room. Really? You came back to this? You disappoint me, girl.)_

"Wait!" Her voice stopped me in my tracks one of my legs disappearing into the wall, other rested uneasily on the carpet of cast away shoes." You paid for three and three you are going to get, Miss Plath! I never cut anybody short."

There were eyes, small eyes peeking through the heavy eyelids like an implied insult that somehow manages to hurt more deeply.

"Remember Miss Plath," the Seeress whispered. "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs…"


	13. Dying for Cleo

**Dying for Cleo**

There was a kind of a fog over Christopher street invisible to many, yet still tangible to all those unlucky people whose perception of the world wasn't limited by fallacies of the senses. The Quick moved in it, slow in their hurry, tangled in the nervous politics of their bodies. Unobservant. Vain. There was a terrace over Christopher Street and music most divine spread over it. One of Palestrina's old dances, born from the ancient, battered relic piano extended its delicate baby fingers from the womb of the empty apartment, almost grasping rusted railing of the balcony. My fingers were also quite close to grasping it but it would do me no good. Cold, iron corroded with blood rust was as unreal to me as the rushed tango of Greenwich Village evening two floors below me. Cabs hollered, young club-goers went across the pavement, dressed in their wild neon attires, their drunken cheerful forms greeting the night. Laughter roared, competing in vain with the mechanized chatter of car engines, commercial panels bluntly celebrating the Babylonian paradise of pleasure. The King Summer was there

 _(… a_ _queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs)_

he approached with long, self important, confident strides. And hand in hand with him was his sister, Despair. She was visible in the deep dark fog that had wrapped its fingers around the evening. She was there: in the averted gaze, in the tremor of uncertainty that sometimes betrayed the hand lighting the cigarette. In the slow shuffling passing of youths who talked and laughed as they went out of the cabs and stepped into the nightclubs, knowing well in the Freudian corners of their minds that they laughed & talked alone.

Isaac was playing. He stopped just to let me inside. He didn't stop to hear about his daughter and that was alright with me; I jumped behind the high wheel of the Vette and drove over here, as soon as General Slocum had docked. The words of this southern matron still rang inside my Psyche shaking me deeply. It was the bloody "Bell Jar", off course it was. Those damned opening lines that I still remember typing on old portable typewriter. Why did it seem that every dead loon this side of Stygia wanted to quote me all of a sudden? I knew there were people I inspired; I never claimed to be Jack bloody Kerouac, that fast typing French devil; my poems and stories never sold jeans or made people go on trips of self-actualization filled with drugs and wild sex. It was mostly depression and irritating feminist poseurs with me: those ladies would have probably eaten their own wide rimmed eye glasses if they knew about me now. Sylvia Plath, the cursed melancholic poet, exiled from her paper-pushing routine by the dead psychos and stuck in the middle of penny dreadful murder mystery. Finding snippets of her poems and prose pinned to murder victims, oh, not just that ladies and gentlemen, murder victims dressed in beekeepers attire, nothing less (the murderers among my fans are kitschier than Keats, obviously) all this sick shit hitting the fan and spraying everyone, her beautiful melancholic lyrics dazzlingly blasting in from the shit storm like great balls of lightning. And all I wanted was to be left alone, I wanted my routine Legion work, early morning office quid pro quo's with Hartford and Archie's old fashioned, small-town wit.

Isaac's music swirled and danced around me. I felt lost, like a little girl, sandwich and apple in her knapsack, preparing to take her first step into the classroom on the Monday morning. And yet there was that soothing pleasure in Palestrina's melody, in the hiccupping voice of slightly off-key piano, in Isaac's silence and in the determined summertime sadness of knowing that everything is going to end soon. I drank the last chords like water of Lethe, and when the music stopped I turned around to see Isaac coming towards, his hands slightly trembling, his feet unsure as he traversed the concrete floor. The walls of his Haunt were covered with obscene graffiti, and floor was littered with garbage. His relic piano was the only piece of furniture he had kept- there weren't soulforged locks or door, for that matter, no moliated tables or soulmetal chests.

"And? " He asked. "What did the Seeress say? Are there any news of her?"

"She is here. At least that's how I had understood her. She said that you will find her when she learns why she is here. She is "engrossed in the mystery of her own demise."

Charon knows why, but Isaac's face didn't seem to lighten a bit. His hands, long and spidery, so confident when they drew figments of music from his memory to the keys of old piano, still fidgeted about his tweed coat- He was nervous, almost like he had been expecting something and there was still that wild, almost hysterical look in his deep knowing eyes. I wondered what was it that he knew that I didn't and all of a sudden I understood why Oracles of old myth had been feared and why no one believed poor Cassandra. Not knowing one's fate is a blessing, for there seem to be more uncertainties in knowledge than there are in ignorance. ( _you are good at being pretentious today girl)_

"Thank you for your aid, lady." He sighed. "If you want me to repay you, I will be glad to do so."

"No, no need at all. I am always glad to help."

"I must say there is a bitter irony in that prophecy. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that Sarah is here, but somehow I always thought she had to be. It's the thing with us who have the gift- the pleasure of surprise is so often lost on us. I am feeling frustrated, for if she wants to know how she died, I am the one who could help her."

"You know how she died?"

"I don't, but one glance at her would be enough for me to know." He looked at me, now standing right beside me on the balcony, my hands wanting to grasp the railing but passing right through it. Wry amusement was painted on his face. "You are familiar with deathmarks, are you?"

I quickly shuffled through the mental library of terms Cletus had told me about: "They are marks borne upon the wraiths and the Quick that are nearing their end. Sometimes they can be easy to interpret, like a gunshot wound, " I remembered Zoey's blood splattered green dress and fought the impulse to shudder. Mostly they are symbolic or simply invisible to people who don't know what to look for."

"Oracles know intuitively. A passing glance is enough for ones with the gift to know how did one meet his or hers end. Or how will this end be met. You never tried to do it?"

"Not really. I only discovered my gift recently ad besides it seems somehow…

"Rude?"A nervous chuckle. "Like prying?

"Yes. Somebody's death ought to be their own business. We don't poke our noses into somebody's personal matters."

Isaac laughed. It was a healthy laugh, edged with a jagged frame of anxiety but still full and powerful.

"You are right. One should not pry into other people's dying. It seems like poor manners. Still, there seem to be many souls out there who want to know how they met their end. The Entire Legion of them."

I nodded: "They call them Paupers. I see how that sort of skill can be helpful. There are also lots of disputes about newly reaped wraiths being sorted into the right Legions. My own office had to clash jurisdictions with bunch of the Reapers from Grim Legion. Those folks were real trouble. Still, we had no Oracles to speak of and they always seemed to have gotten the better of us. They are really mighty. And forceful. "

"You have an Oracle now." He pointed a trembling finger at me.

"I don't know where to look when death marks are concerned."

"You can learn. Try it out on me. I owe you that much."

Despite everything, I felt amused: "You are offering yourself as an autopsy subject?"

"I have no particular problem with people knowing what I died of, Miss Plath." He stood there, picking at is bowtie, scratching one of his hands with forefinger of the other."

"If you insist." I smiled.

I looked at him. His Corpus seemed unblemished. No visible wounds, no traces of violence. He seemed aged, about sixty, but healthy. His hair and beard were salt and pepper, not yet whitened by age. There were deep lines upon his forehead and around his eyes. I discarded old age as a cause of his death- although many who had died old appeared younger; they rarely _felt_ younger in the moment of their passing. There was that look of anxiety about him- twitching of fingers and picking at clothes and the skin of his hands. People who took Benzedrine often had that sorts of compulsive, nervousness but he hadn't that haunted look of a man plagued with addiction. Then came the flash and I saw his hands reddening: In the weird moment of otherworldly clarity I have seen him change: his fingers trembling and twisting uncontrollably, the skin of his skin covered with ugly wine red splotches. His joints were swollen, and distended, her face ugly bloated mask of deep pain.

"By Charon! I am so, so sorry that you had suffered ! What had it been?

"Pellagra." He smiled knowingly. my vision disappeared as he made a consoling step towards me. "It had been quite a plague in Depression era. Nasty way to go too. Not as nasty as yours, though." He talked another step towards me. There was a smile upon his face,a smile that didn't seem consoling at all. I tried to take a step backwards, passing through the iron railing. There was quite a drop below me, the drop that was bound to hurt me, thanks to the Earth still seemed solid and substantial to us.

"You checked my death marks?" My voice went wavering. All of a sudden I was afraid of him. The image of that poor, emaciated and swollen pellagra-eaten body was still fatamorganously flickering somewhere behind my eyelids.

"I had no need to. Everyone in our old crew knows about good ol' Sylvia Plath. The tortured woman. The dead woman." He advanced another step. His body was now pressed into mine, crowding me. There was no way to go. " Cleo knows you too, little lady of Yaddo, she knows you well enough."

With graceful swiftness that surprised me, my hand reached into the pocked of my blouse, fingers deftly searching the hilt of Stygian steel yataghan.

My pocket was empty. Dagger wasn't there.

I gasped as the hot blade pierced my belly. Then there was fiery pain of a downward stroke as Isaac effectively and expertly disemboweled my Corpus. Cold ectoplasm was gushing out of me, and my eyes stupidly fixated themselves upon the hilt of my dagger in his disfigured hand.

"I took the liberty of filching that from your pocket. I hope you are not too mad." Scream escaped my lips as he twisted the dagger inside the searing mouth of a wound. "Besides I don't think you would have known to use it if push came to a shove."

He leaned towards me, his mouth coming close to my ear in a sick parody of lover's gesture

"It must really come dreadful to you, to be murdered for the second time. I am sorry, girl but some people want you out of here, and this is only hope I have of seeing my daughter ever again. "

( _Wow Sylvia dear! That was a complete surprise to me too)_

"Die little girl! Die for Cleo!"

There was another cut, maybe another scream. Then everything dissolved and I heard the Oblivion calling.


	14. The Harrowing

**The Harrowing**

I've been harrowed twice, and Charon knows, one never gets used to that feeling.

First the pain increases- the wound in my belly expanded like a black hole, sucking my entire Psyche in. I felt myself disappearing into it like liquid vanishing down the drainage pipe. Every single time is the same, and every single time you think that it will never end, that this pain will be all of your existence from this moment on, silent childbirth of Hurt that swims over you, overwhelming every sense, numbing every emotion.

Heretics who speak of Transcendence probably never experienced the Harrowing, or if they have they are a bunch of sadistic liars' intent on spreading the pain. And that lie seems calming enough if you don't know shit about how painful detachment from one's passions is. It's not some gentle Nirvana- like state of divine calamity- it's the pulsating gangrene eating at the nerve endings of your spiritual body after playing a tourniquet jig on their sensitive strings.

"There is always a choice when you are struck inside the Harrowing- every situation is a Labyrinth" I remembered Cletus talking to me during one of his lectures. We sat at the table in Five Spots Café, the very same table where we sat when he was, twenty five years later plunged into his own Harrowing by a bullet of crazy singer. "If you choose right, you return, almost unscathed. If you choose wrong you can be forever stuck in the Labyrinth, playing out the same fragment of your breathing life, again and again, until your Psyche finally folds and your Shadow takes over."

"And how will I know what the right choice is?"

"You won't until you made it. You probably won't even know that Harrowing is a test of your will."

After the pain the Voices come to play. They indulge in their triumph, flocking like mosquitoes upon exposed Psyche, drinking every shameful secret, stabbing their greedy proboscises into insecurities kept tucked away in the dark, shadowy corners of the mind.

They knew they can keep me here forever, a play-toy for bunch of moronic grinning children, a fly with an infinite number of wings and legs for them to slowly pull off. The last vestiges of Shadowlands, are still dancing somewhere on the other end of the tunnel- grave image of a man ( _Isaac?_ ) wasted by pellagra that has my own Stygian-steel blade buried inside me. His face is a face of Despair, death of laughter coming from the streets its sullen victory song.

But they soon disappear, with only the vaguest, teasing thoughts playing themselves over and over, a skipping vinyl record playing inside my Psyche.

" _It must really come dreadful to you, to be murdered for the second time. I am sorry, girl but some people want you out of here, and this is only hope I have of seeing my daughter ever again. "_

" _Remember Syv, remember."_

 _every situation is a Labyrinth_

" _Murdered for the second time"_

 _Second time…Second time…Second time"_

Although I know that it serves no use, I attempt a scream as I am amputated from my own afterlife and thrown into the blackness.

And, cue for the worst part- Oblivion. All memories, all thoughts and all emotions disappear. They will be recreated by those torturing Voices, but only in a way that suits their twisted little game. The game of Harrowing.

I did it again- I thought as another spray of acrid transparent vomit hit the bottom of the toilet bowl. Half digested vodka, bitter and gooey hit the roof of my mouth and I retched again.

"Oh, you stupid, stupid bitch." – the voice inside my head sounded suspiciously like my mother's so I puked again. My calves and knees felt cramped on the dirty floor of the restroom. Cuts I have made yesterday still throbbed when I got up focusing on the invigorating swirl of jazz coming in from the main hall. It was better. I was still unsteady on my feet, but let's face it, I was at the White Horse at about midnight and it meant that there wasn't a living soul around that was still sober. As I leaned over the basin for a drink of water, I tried to piece together the wild and now, unfortunately, puke-stained collage of the evening. I was with Melanie and that new bloke; I think his name was Blaine. Blaine was a unremarkable young man, with a blonde, shortly cropped hair, a English lit student that arrived from Minnesota- quiet, unpretentious kind of guy, with pencil holders in the pocket of his dirty- white shirt. We had a couple of drink and then I started feeling lonesome. It seemed that every conversation went right above my head- there was nothing to talk about, nothing to mention. Melanie quizzed Blaine about Midwest; couples were dancing to the hot bebop played by four-man Harlem band, the drinks kept coming and I stood there wondering what are those folks thinking about me, those folks who were so happy and eager to live.

I knew Melanie invited me only to cheer me up, and now I felt like my very presence was bothering them- there was that new guy, who probably seemed to her so refreshingly reliable and responsible behind his round eyeglasses and his pencil holder. And there was I- ghost of a girl trying to ignore the wild prairie of emptiness that stretched inside me. In a moment I became aware of their waiting gazes and I spoke before I was actually aware about what actually came out of my mouth:

"Are there prairies in Minnesota? Are there beautifully empty. Can you lose your gaze in them? I'd like to lose mine, I've seen to much."

There was concern on Melanie's face; slight amusement on Blaine's.

"Excuse me." I said awkwardly, trying to patch the unpleasant situation. "I have to go and refresh myself."

"Syv! Syv! Are you all…" Melanie's voice was lost in the saxophone's blare.

A moment later I sat alone at the bar and gulped down shot after shot of clear, strong vodka.

Some unspecified time after that- the flow of time seemed to have become stretched, fuzzy and fragmented at the same time- I was barfing on the floor of the ladies-room drunk as a skunk. There was nothing left to do but collect last pieces of dignity, get out, call a cab and phone Melanie in the morning to apologize. Make up something about feeling a bit under the weather lately- hey, she knew as well as I did about us New England ladies being prone to depression in the summertime. I she didn't maybe I could show her the razor- marks on the insides of my calves? Wouldn't it be amusing to give her the final proof that her young guest editor had gone completely of the rocker?

I stumbled through the thinning crowd. There was a drunken applause as the last motes of music fell upon the dirty redwood floor. Manhattan summer fell heavy on my cheeks. The buzzing cacophony of traffic was comforting- it reminded me of beehives. There was a poem in that, but I think I'll save that for another day.

I stood on a hot pavement in front of the "White horse", breathing in the July, salted with musty tang of the ocean. I decided against a cab- my apartment was only two blocks down the lane. The air was heavy but fresh and it brought unexpected clarity into my mind. I took my heels off and walked, probing the concrete with the soles of my feet. It was cool, and dewy. The roar of engines and distant din of the machinery from Manhattan harbour. A drunk's voice calling out a name. Jane or James, maybe.

Everything lulled me, as I tried to think about what in the world went wrong with me. Was it the sadness at the repressed knowledge that my days in the Big Apple are nearing an end, that in a fortnight I'll have to return to my sullen home in the New England waiting for the slow agony of dying summer by the uncaring ocean to end? All that under close watch of my mother followed by the dirge of seagulls. Was it the fact that I accomplished nothing here- I missed meeting Dylan Thomas by an inch, because of stupid drunken mistake. My application for Harvard creative writing course was turned down. My internship in the fashion magazine devolved into endless pointless string of drunken evenings.

Those things seemed downright stupid- overly dramatic foolishness of an adolescent girl. But underneath those surface disappointments there was something else.

It seemed as if something ancient stood rearing its ugly head from behind the glass and steel towers of Manhattan. It was there, and for some reason I could sense it as I walked home. Every comforting sound, every shadow even the touch of air upon my skin was a passing illusion that hid the frightening face leering around the crooked corners of existence, just like the pile of coats thrown across a chair in the corner of child's bedroom obscures the shape of a boogeyman. It stood there, dreaming, and silence was its song. The very fact that the reality never seemed so unreal was the very thing that was driving me insane.

I reached the boarding house in which my apartment was located. It was on the small puckered mouth of 11th street on a place where it left Manhattan and kissed West Village. It was an ugly, small three-story building with faded walls of dull red brick. My apartment stood on the second floor. Stairway was eternally damp, and dark. I reached for a light switch. It clicked like empty gun in one of the old John Ford movies. It seemed that the light was out. Probing for the first stair with my foot, I started to ascend.

I climbed up the stars, grasping the handrail, feeling woozy again, only now it was more pure exhaustion than drink that made me lightheaded. My feet shuffled along the wooden stairs their soft patter the only thing that broke the silence. Dark and silence, isn't it peculiar how they always seem to go together? If dark night was a comforting reality of the death, the silence was the song of the dead, discordantly bellowed into infinity- there was nothing to hear and nothing to communicate. Only a mute choir singing the silence, again and again. If life was a story full of the scream and the fury death was likewise an idiot's story, a tale full of silence and numb, sedated catatonia, pair of murky eyes staring out into the distance.

I shuddered as I unlocked my door. Nervously I reached for the light. Its yellow gaze was oddly comforting. I collapsed upon the carpet, dropping my purse and high heels down with a clatter.

"You're headed for a nutty-home Syv?" I mumbled to myself. I saw my twitching hand, poor pale ghost, adorned with bitten-out nails struggling with the latch. I should really get some sleep, perhaps it was only the drink and the exhaustion that was getting to me…

The moment my trembling fingers found the latch, I paused. There was a sound of footsteps coming through the darkness. I could hear them, climbing out the stairs. It was a slow click-clack of the high-heels. They were closing in.

"Don't be ridiculous." I spoke out loud without noticing it immediately flinching at the sound of my own voice. "People come and go here all the time,

 _(…in Charon's name)_

for crying out loud. It's a boarding house, Syv, and it's Friday night, after all. You don't need paranoia on top of everything, don't you?"

The footsteps stopped just in front of my door. My breathing halted. There was a knob inside my throat and I kept trying to swallow it in vain.

The door knob slowly turned. I put my back against the door, remembering, in my panic, that I have dropped the keychain when I heard the steps. I felt slow, reluctant but steady push against my lower back. Brass doorknob was digging itself into my hip. I braced myself, trying to stifle a scream that flowered inside my dry throat.

Just a push. And then a nervous titter of girl's laughter from the other side.

The footsteps again. This time moving away from the door.

I slowly rose, and looked around to see if anybody is watching me. It was absurd of course. There was no one in my small apartment (a bed, a turned off electrical heater, a nightstand covered in books and papers, small coffee table with a kitchen chair and a gas stove, with two kitchen cabinets poised above it as a pair of eyes) but myself. Waiting for the footsteps to die out I opened the door.

The two objects I found before it filled me with puzzlement and unexplainable dread that spread outward like wildfire from the pit of my stomach.

First thing that had gotten my attention was a clear blue envelope.

The second was beekeepers hat.


End file.
